Herberto Helder de Oliveira (

Funchal Funchal () is the largest city, the municipal seat and the capital of Portugal's Autonomous Region of Madeira, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean. The city has a population of 105,795, making it the sixth largest city in Portugal. Because of its hig ...

, São Pedro, 23 November 1930 –

Cascais Cascais () is a town and municipality in the Lisbon District of Portugal, located on the Portuguese Riviera. The municipality has a total of 214,158 inhabitants in an area of 97.40 km2. Cascais is an important tourist destination. Its marin ...

, 23 March 2015) was a Portuguese

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or w ...

often considered the most important Portuguese poet of the second half of the 20th century.

Biography

Herberto Helder was born in the Portuguese Atlantic island of Madeira. In 1946 he traveled to

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administrative limits w ...

to complete his secondary studies and subsequently in 1948 moved to

Coimbra Coimbra (, also , , or ) is a city and a municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2011 census was 143,397, in an area of . The fourth-largest urban area in Portugal after Lisbon, Porto, and Braga, it is the largest cit ...

to study Law at university. In 1949 he had changed to the Humanities University to study Romance Philology but dropped out after three years without completing the course. After returning to Lisbon he took up several temporary jobs, and got in contact with a circle of artists and writers such as

Mário Cesariny Mario is the Italian, French, Croatian, Spanish, Portuguese, Bulgarian, Greek, and English form of the Latin Roman name Marius. In Croatia, the name Mario was among the most common masculine given names in the decades between 1970 and 1999, and ...

, Luiz Pacheco, João Vieira and

Hélder Macedo Hélder Malta Macedo ( Krugersdorp, November 1935) is a Portuguese writer. His father was a colonial administrator in Zambézia, Mozambique, where Macedo grew up till the age of 12. His opposition to the Salazar regime caused him to seek exile ...

. This group revolved around

Surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...

which would inform his early writings. In 1958 his first book, ''O Amor em Visita'' was published. In the following years he traveled and lived in France, Holland and Belgium taking menial jobs to survive. In 1994, he was the winner of the

Pessoa Prize The Pessoa Prize ( pt, Prémio Pessoa, ), named after Fernando Pessoa, is recognized as the most important award in the area of Portuguese culture. Created in 1987 by the newspaper ''Expresso'' and the IT company Unisys, since 2008 the prize has be ...

, which he refused, saying "Don't tell anyone and give the prize to someone else ..."

Works

Herberto Helder's poetry and fiction is very visual, and has connections with

, still his style is difficult to define; he was a practitioner of

experimental poetry Experimental literature is a genre that is, according to Warren Motte in his essa"Experimental Writing, Experimental Reading" "difficult to define with any sort of precision." He says the "writing is often invoked in an "offhand manner" and the ...

and some call him an

orphic Orphism (more rarely Orphicism; grc, Ὀρφικά, Orphiká) is the name given to a set of religious beliefs and practices originating in the ancient Greek and Hellenistic world, associated with literature ascribed to the mythical poet Orphe ...

or visionary poet (that somehow reminds

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...

). Considered one of the most important contemporary Portuguese poets his poetry is not yet enough studied by academics due to the obscurity of his

personality Personality is the characteristic sets of behaviors, cognitions, and emotional patterns that are formed from biological and environmental factors, and which change over time. While there is no generally agreed-upon definition of personality, ...

itself (he refused to take literary prizes or have media exposure) and the complexity of his paradoxal work that has a strange enchantment.

Published works

Poetry

* O Amor em visita (Love in visit), Lisbon, 1958 * A Colher na Boca (The spoon in the mouth), Lisbon, 1961 *Poemacto (Poemact), Lisbon, 1967 *Lugar (Place), Lisbon, 1962 *Electronicolirica (Electronicalyrics), Lisbon, 1964 *Húmus (Humus), Lisbon, 1967 *Retrato em movimento (Portrait in movement), Lisbon, 1967 *O bebedor nocturno (The nocturnal drinker), Lisbon, 1968 *O ofício cantante (The singing craft), Lisbon, 1968 *Cobra (Snake/Cobra), Lisbon, 1977 *Photomaton e Vox (Photomaton and Vox), Lisbon, 1979 *Poesia Toda (All Poetry), Lisbon, 1981 *A Cabeça entre as mãos (The head between the hands), Lisbon, 1982 * As Magias (1987) * Última Ciência (1988) * Do Mundo (1994) * Poesia Toda (1º vol. de 1953 a 1966; 2º vol. de 1963 a 1971) (1973) * Poesia Toda (1ª ed. em 1981) * A Faca Não Corta o Fogo – Súmula & Inédita (2008) * Ofício Cantante (2009) * Servidões (2013) * A Morte sem Mestre (2014) * Poemas canhotos (2015) - Finished just before his death, published two months after the author's death.

Fiction

*Os passos em volta (The steps around), Lisbon, 1963 *Apresentação do rosto (Presentation of the face), Lisbon, 1968

References

4
Herberto Helder, in memoriam
Revista Palavra Comum {{DEFAULTSORT:Helder, Herberto 1930 births Portuguese male poets University of Lisbon alumni University of Coimbra alumni People from Funchal Pessoa Prize winners 2015 deaths 20th-century Portuguese poets 21st-century Portuguese writers 21st-century Portuguese poets 20th-century male writers 21st-century male writers