Winding Down in Lisbon

Business first, pictures later.

As far as I can tell, I've succeeded in generating a full poetic bibliography for Lacerda:

• 1955 - 77 Poemas

• 1961 - Palácio
• 1963 - Exílio
• 1969 - Selected Poems
• 1981 - Tauromagia
• 1984 - Oferenda I
• 1987 - Elegias de Londres
• 1987 – Lisboa
• 1988 - Meio-dia (Prémio Pen Club)
• 1991 - Sonetos
• 1994 - Oferenda II
• 1997 - Átrio
• 2001 - Horizonte
• 20?? - Mecânica Celeste
• 2010 - O Pagem Informidável dos Indícios
                                                                                                            

Bold = Books I've translated.

Italics = Collections I've found and purchased.

Underlined = Collections that are limited editions and/or are out of reach currently.

Normal = Books that I can access in the states (here's hoping Yale's interlibrary loan is free).

It's an amazing body of work, and translating it has affected my writing to a degree. I'm interested to see what I find for the few days I'm in northern Portugal (Coimbra and Porto). I've got my hands on some of his prose and a book that supposedly includes a lot of his letters, so we'll see how that flies.

I think I will be leaving Lisbon tomorrow or Monday. Time has flown, but I've gotten some good work done and I have loved it here. I'm happy to be headed to Coimbra and Porto, and I'm sure my journeys through Spain will be interesting. If nothing else, I'm going to learn some more Spanish or starve to death.

~

A few days ago I was sick of poetry, so I called up Filipe and we headed to the Parque das Nações. It was originally the site of the Expo '98 (whatever that means). Here's what we found:

The Oriente train station. Much more impressive lit up at night, or so I hear.

Buildings with faux hawks.

Twin buildings with faux hawks.

The Lisbon Aquarium.

Also known as "Oceanário de Lisboa"

 .

A waterfall.

The Ponte Vasco da Gama, fifth-longest bridge in the world (statistic as of 1998, not no mo).

Awesome empty cannons.

A ton of flags and the Atlantic Arena, which looks like a spaceship.

The Torre Vasco da Gama, complete with construction for the Royal Hotel.

Stupid modern art. Very large, stupid modern art, I might add.

Lisbon is a great city. I'm really going to miss this place. Even the stupid modern art.