Herberto Helder de Oliveira (

Funchal Funchal () officially Funchal City (), is the capital, largest city and a Municipality (Portugal), municipality in Portugal's Madeira, Autonomous Region of Madeira, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean. The city has a population of 105,795, making it ...

, São Pedro, 23 November 1930 –

Cascais Cascais () is a town and municipality in the Lisbon District of Portugal, located on the Portuguese Riviera, Estoril Coast. The municipality has a total of 214,158 inhabitants in an area of 97.40 km2. Cascais is an important tourism in Port ...

, 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 (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

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 ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

to complete his secondary studies and subsequently in 1948 moved to

Coimbra Coimbra (, also , , or ), officially the City of Coimbra (), is a city and a concelho, municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2021 census was 140,796, in an area of . The fourth-largest agglomerated urban area in Po ...

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, Luiz Pacheco, João Vieira and Hélder Macedo. This group revolved around

Surrealism Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

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, 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 and some call him an orphic or visionary poet (that somehow reminds

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an List of poets from the United States, American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Ita ...

). 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 any person's collection of interrelated behavioral, cognitive, and emotional patterns that comprise a person’s unique adjustment to life. These interrelated patterns are relatively stable, but can change over long time per ...

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 Portuguese male writers 21st-century Portuguese male writers