The poem, toy for slim boy: illustrations of childhood in João Cabral’s poetry

Abstract

This paper proposes a reading exercise in order to investigate the presence of “illustrations” of children in poems by João Cabral de Melo Neto, inserting him into an aspect of the poetic tradition in Brazilian literature: the poetry about the childhood. This analytical- interpretative vector is in line with the observation of the lyrical materiality of Cabral’s poetic – which is commonly crystallized under the notion of anti-lyrism. With our analysis, we identified that, by evoking childhood, both his own and that of others, the poet reveals an encrypted intimacy that permeates the compositional fabric, linking the groping towards childhood perception to the inaugural look at the world and language.