My Poetry Corner June 2025 features the poem “Wildebeests Migrate Across the Serengeti / Gnus Migram Através do Serengeti” from the poetry collection The Movement of Birds / O Movimento dos Pássaros (2020) by Micheliny Verunschk, an award-winning Brazilian poet, romance novelist, literary critic, and historian. All the excerpts cited in this article are from this collection.

Verunschk was born in Recife, capital of the Northeast State of Pernambuco, in 1972 during the period of Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964-1985). Her father was in the military; her mother was a teacher. She holds a master’s degree in Literature and Literary Criticism, as well as a doctorate in Communication and Semiotics from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC). She has lived in São Paulo since 2004.

The young Micheliny spent most of her childhood in Arcoverde, a violent city in the semi-arid interior of Pernambuco. Exposed to violence at an early age, she was curious about what her father was doing in the military. She also lived in Tupanatinga, yet another violent city in the interior. It’s no surprise then, with her father’s encouragement, that she found release in writing poetry and stories as early as nine years old.

As Verunschk shared in an interview in 2003, following the release of her debut poetry collection, writing was vital for her life, like breathing. Writing made her feel she existed and made it possible to interact with the world. Yet, based on the excerpt from her poem “All the verses I want to write,” not all her teachers were open to what she had to say:

everything I want to say has already been said
but the assistant teacher imposes his own rhythm
write fifty times on the board

it is forbidden to disrupt the class
it is forbidden to disrupt the class
it is forbidden to disrupt the class

but everything I want to shout
is stifled in the throat

Verunschk’s 2020 poetry collection, The Movement of Birds, explores the migratory movement of human and non-human lives. She speaks of lives that come and go, crossings, continuous passageways, and our attempts to settle somewhere in the world.

In her 45-line poem, “Guidebook,” she takes us to the streets of any big city, such as São Paulo, New York, London, or Mexico City. As we walk these streets, we rarely consider the diverse people with whom we share these streets. Nor do we think about the suffering and losses of the people who have come and gone before us. Much as some people would like us to believe, we do not exist in a social/historical vacuum.

As the poet asks in lines 5 and 6: With how many colors do you paint your feet? / How much blood do you inject into your chest?

Lines 16 to 27 address our fears of the immigrant, forgetting that we are all immigrants in a country that is not ours. This is true for us in the USA/North America as it is in Brazil/South America.

Every day you migrate and don’t even realize it.
Every day looking for a sanctuary
more or less safe
in a country that is not yours.
And yet
with painted feet
and trafficked blood
you,
you yourself
are nothing more than just another textbook Roman
fearing the invasion of the barbarians
and suffering in advance for the fall of the empire.

We are reminded that migrants/immigrants are not a new phenomenon in our country or across the world. The following excerpt are lines 28-30 and 39-45: When my grandfather / arrived in this country / they wanted him as a slave […] he crossed the sea / fleeing from hunger / in Old Europe / (the sea / a vast space / surrounded by lice and cholera). / The whole earth is made up of these people who move.

The history of human civilizations reveals that we are a species constantly on the move. That movement or migration will only intensify as extreme weather events make certain areas unsafe or uninhabitable.

The two-stanza featured poem, “Wildebeests Migrate Across the Serengeti,” considers the unique restraints to human migration in relation to non-human life with whom we share our planet.

Wildebeests migrate across the Serengeti
monarch butterflies by the millions
traverse the Americas
reindeer travel a thousand kilometers
to reach the north
and the dark harrier
almost like an albatross
circles the planet one and a half times
sixty-three thousand kilometers in the flutter of its wings
almost the same thing as the Arctic tern

Though the migration of the species cited are not constrained by human-defined, national borders, they also face the negative impacts of human activities and severe weather on their habitats and feeding grounds. You can learn more about the threats to these non-human species mentioned in the featured poem:

• Wildebeests of Africa’s Serengeti
• Monarch Butterflies
• Dark Harrier
• Arctic Tern

The second stanza of the featured poem focuses on the human species. Unlike the monarch butterfly, we need visas to cross frontier borders. What’s more, these borders are policed by special border agents. To enter or traverse a foreign territory without the requisite papers is a crime, punishable with deportation or imprisonment, if caught. Beware of indiscriminate enforcers.

Only man
that strange species
made of paper and signatures
understands what is a frontier border limit 
only man
knows what is a padlocked chain cable
only man
that strange species
understands what is the police force.

The poet’s description of the human species as made of paper and signatures could not be more precise. From the moment of our birth, our passage through the various stages of our life is marked by special papers with signatures, known as certificates. The moment of our death is similarly recorded. Without these papers, one would cease to exist as a member of society.

To read the complete featured poem “Wildebeests Migrate Across the Serengeti / Gnus Migram Através do Serengeti” in its original Portuguese, and to learn more about the work of Micheliny Verunschk, go to my Poetry Corner June 2025.