João Moita

- Portugal -

João Moita was born in Alpiarça, Portugal, in 1984. He has published O Vento Soprado como Sangue (Cosmorama, 2009), Miasmas (Cosmorama, 2010), Fome (Enfermaria 6, 2015, 1st ed.; 2017, 2nd ed. revised and expanded), Uma Pedra sobre a Boca (Guerra e Paz, 2019), and Que Túmulo em que Talhão (Guerra e Paz, 2022). With Que Túmulo em que Talhão, he won the Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho Grand Prize for Poetry/Portuguese Writers Association in 2023. He has translated works by Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Saint-John Perse, Antonio Gamoneda, and Walt Whitman. He works as a fiction and non-fiction editor at Grupo Almedina.

In awarding the 2023 Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho Grand Prize for Poetry/Portuguese Writers Association to Que Túmulo em que Talhão, the jury emphasized that João Moita’s poetry “bursts into the contemporary Portuguese poetic landscape with a discreetly overwhelming force, enriching it with a consistent, powerful, and singular voice.” Literary critic Pedro Mexia, for his part, talking about Uma Pedra sobre a Boca highlights the “intensity of feeling and moral seriousness” of the author’s work, which, “instead of deflating poetry […], confronts the terrible beauty of the poetic, unveiled through faith” — or, more precisely, through the absence of faith in a world that could only be justified by faith. His publisher, meanwhile, praises “a body of work that explores a nature indifferent to human beings, evoking the exuberant and amoral force of nature, in life and in death.”

Born in the Ribatejo town of Alpiarça in 1984, the author published his first poetry books in 2009 and 2010, only returning to publication five years later, in 2015, and then again after another seven-year hiatus, in 2022. In 2019, he gathered and reframed the body of work he then considered valid. His relationship with writing is, moreover, a troubled one. As he himself admitted in the acceptance speech for the prize awarded to him in 2023: “It always sounds like slander to hear my name preceded by the epithet ‘poet.’ One is not a poet. At most, one may have been a poet. To be a poet is a proposition that can only be conjugated in the past tense, if we have been lucky. […] Added to this feeling is the bad conscience under whose influence I am able to write the almost nothing that I have written. This is not the social bad conscience of someone struck by Adorno’s dictum that writing poetry after Auschwitz would be barbaric. It is perhaps, on the contrary, the private bad conscience of the kind that led Rimbaud — a poet to whom I have devoted myself insistently in recent years — to renounce writing. The bad conscience of someone who dedicates all his strength to an impossibility that resolves nothing, stirs up nothing, destroys nothing, and produces no miracle, not even one of those domestic miracles capable of momentarily redeeming our unfathomable abandonment. Poetry, moreover, redeems nothing; it merely reveals the need for redemption. It does not function as solace, but rather lays bare a symptom. Yet in the manifestation of that symptom lies the utmost to which we, as a species, may aspire, because it is through that symptom that we expose the flaw that constitutes us and within whose coordinates we struggle. Poetry bears witness to a deprivation, but it neither suppresses it nor brings us closer to what might suppress it. It points toward a horizon, and therein lies all its almost negligible dignity.”

The scarcity of his original work contrasts with the abundance of translations he has published over the years. In the field of poetry in particular, he has translated Les Fleurs du mal by Baudelaire; twice, at different moments, the complete works of Arthur Rimbaud; Fêtes galantes and Romances sans paroles by Paul Verlaine; Song of Myself by Walt Whitman, as well as anthologies by the Spanish Cervantes Prize winner Antonio Gamoneda and the French Nobel laureate Saint-John Perse.

Coming from a disadvantaged background, he takes no pride in the academic degrees he earned while working full-time and remaining almost entirely removed from university life.

Discreet and self-effacing, he works professionally in publishing as a fiction and non-fiction editor at Grupo Almedina.

More about the poet

Poetry

[The sun crackles on the shed’s zinc roof] / [O sol crepita no zinco do barracão]

The sun crackles on the shed’s zinc roof.
The dogs foam, rabid with rage.
A wasps’ nest hums in the shade.
A sickle hangs from a nail —

its handle is split,
and the blade, blunt,
melts beneath the verdigris.

The rats piss in the corners.
The potatoes rot in their sacks.
The bats sway from the beams.
A stale reek rises from the chests.

Decades of dust accumulated
on the hard-packed earth floor.
Spiders contest the flies
with geckos and bats.

A briny breeze slips
through the crack in the gate,
ruffling moulds that once were fruits:
loquats, plums, pears, lemons.

At the back, in the gleaming washbasin,
a drowned litter of kittens floats.
The mother, still young, curled up
at her mistress’s feet, mews, starving.
Translated by Ricardo Marques
O sol crepita no zinco do barracão.
Os cães espumam encarniçados.
Um vespeiro zumbe na sombra.
Uma foice pende de um prego —

o cabo está rachado,
e a lâmina, romba,
funde-se sob o verdete.

Os ratos mijam pelos cantos.
As batatas apodrecem nas sacas.
Os morcegos oscilam nas vigas.
O bafio emana das arcas.

Decénios de pó acumulado
no chão de terra batida.
Aranhas que disputam as moscas
às osgas e aos morcegos.

Uma brisa salobra desliza
pela frincha do portão,
riçando bolores que foram frutos:
nêsperas, ameixas, pêras, limões.

Ao fundo, no alguidar reluzente,
bóia afogada uma ninhada de gatos.
A mãe, ainda jovem, enrodilhada
nos pés da dona, mia, esfaimada.
[Bats Circle] / [Rondam morcegos]

Bats circle
through the backyards,
their twisted gestures
full of mournful joy.

A hollow silence
descends from a sky
unreachable,
where a sliver
of light narrows.

The trees suffocate
beneath the clot of fruit,
whose exquisite sharpness
the birds peck at,
dazed with pleasure.

An oblique vertigo
pierces the still waters
of the reservoir.

In the vineyards,
the globes of grapes
harpooned
by insects,
the gangrene
of fireflies,
the earth’s rot
teeming
with worms
that the herons
savour.

A dubious dampness,
degrading,
languishes and festers.

And indifference,
like a veil,
falling
over the figures
in the shade,
entangling all,
outlining all
within its
comforting aura.

A timid breeze
fades and gives up.

Motionless on the beam,
the frayed noose,
a garrote for so much
and such needless beauty.
Translated by Ricardo Marques
Rondam morcegos
pelos quintais,
tortuosos ademanes
de enlutada alegria.

Um silêncio côncavo
desce de um céu
inacessível
que uma réstia
de luz afunila.

Asfixiam as árvores
sob o coágulo dos frutos,
cuja requintada acidez
os pássaros debicam,
aturdidos de prazer.

Uma vertigem oblíqua
vara as águas paradas
da albufeira.

Nas vinhas,
os globos das uvas
arpoados
pelos insectos,
a gangrena
dos pirilampos,
a podridão da terra
pululante
de vermes
que as garças
degustam.

Um relento dúbio,
aviltante,
enlanguesce e supura.

E a indiferença,
como um véu,
caindo
sobre os vultos
na sombra,
tudo enleando,
tudo perfilando
na sua aura
aconchegante.

Uma aragem tímida
esmorece e desiste.

Imóvel na trave,
a forca esgarçada,
garrote para tanta
e tão escusada beleza.
[Like a Ploughshare] / [Como uma relha]

Like a ploughshare
upon sleepless eyelids,
a jay cuts across the yard.

In the tank of murky water,
beneath the pond skaters,
a cat’s thirst.

Beside the wall,
in a mire,
the thermal aura
of the throbbing entrails
of three slaughtered
hens.

The grass grows
like a flame,
invading the cabbage patch.

Beneath the branches
of the loquat tree,
heavy as larvae,
the cysts of fruit
drip.

One hears the buzzing
of a bluebottle fly
against the swollen hull
of the bitch.

A greenish sky
secretes a ballast
of mistletoe-glue,
soon melted
by the tumescence
of the sun.

A slice of moon
boils,
untimely,
on the surface of the well.
A glossy snake
stirs up the henhouse.

Far away,
in the fields,
a cow lows,
its hips crushed
beneath the hooves
of a bull.

Like a ploughshare
over fallow land,
the iridescence of a jay
is sorcery enough.
Translated by Ricardo Marques
Como uma relha
sobre pálpebras insones,
um gaio atravessa o quintal.

No tanque de águas turvas,
sob o assédio dos alfaiates,
a sede de um gato.

Junto ao muro,
num lamaçal,
a aura térmica
das vísceras latejantes
de três frangos
degolados.

A erva cresce
como uma chama,
invade o couval.

Sob os galhos
da nespereira,
pesando como larvas,
gotejam os quistos
dos frutos.

Ouve-se o marulhar
de uma varejeira
contra a quilha bojuda
da cadela.

Um céu esverdeado
segrega um lastro
de visco,
logo derretido
pela tumescência
do sol.

Uma talhada de lua
ferve,
extemporânea,
na superfície do poço.
Uma cobra lustrosa
alvoroça o galinheiro.

Ao longe,
nos campos,
uma vaca muge,
os quadris esmagados
pelos cascos
de um boi.

Como uma relha
sobre terra maninha,
a iridescência de um gaio
é sortilégio bastante.
[With a Sound] / [Com um som]

With a sound
like dragging shovels,
the storks clatter
as they bury the morning.
A rustle of wings
attends the funeral.

The sun throws sparks
upon the coffin.
The lemons
lie blue and mouldered,
like the incorruptible
wounds
of devotion.

Blowflies buzz,
preparing to lay their eggs.
The air reeks of onion
and curdled milk.

A stray cat demands
its mating rights
in the backyard shrouded
by thistles.
One hears the dogs wailing
in the surrounding fields.

Sap boils in the plants,
swelling the stamens.
Beetles wallow
in the doves’ droppings.
A large lizard descends unflinching
from the fig tree.

And, at the back,
officiating the obsequies,
there sways solemnly,
beneath the waterwheel,
the pious erection
of a hanged man.
Translated by Ricardo Marques
Com um som
arrastado de pás,
gloteram as cegonhas
a inumar a manhã.
Um frufru de asas
acolita o enterro.

O sol lança chispas
sobre o caixão.
Jazem azuis e bolorentos
os limões,
como as chagas
imputrescíveis
da devoção.

Zunem moscardos
a preparar a desova.
Tresanda a cebola
e a leite coalhado.

Um gato vadio reclama
o direito de pernada
no quintal amortalhado
pelos cardos.
Ouve-se carpir os cães
nas redondezas.

A seiva ferve nas plantas,
intumescendo os estames.
Besouros chafurdam
nos excrementos das rolas.
Um sardão desce impávido
da figueira.

E, ao fundo,
oficiando as exéquias,
oscila solene,
sob a nora,
a piedosa erecção
de um enforcado.
[The Sun Has Not Yet Set] / [Ainda o sol não se pôs]

The sun has not yet set
and already darkness
closes ranks in the east.

They folded their wings
and hurled themselves
into an untimely
assault,
entangling themselves
among the branches
heavy with the sourness
of the lemon tree.

They are clouds blown
from the pestilent lungs
of the gods.

They will have passed
before collapsing
in other lands,
where the army
of storks in flight
has gathered
and waits for them
for a cruel
skirmish:

snow will fall
upon
the battlefield.

Then it will be time
to gather
the fallen lemons
with which I shall defy
the night.

To compose myself,
to sip the venom
of indifference.

To suck the segments,
to spit the seeds.
Translated by Ricardo Marques
Ainda o sol não se pôs
e já a escuridão
cerra fileiras a oriente.

Fecharam as asas
e lançaram-se
num ataque
extemporâneo,
enredando-se
nos ramos pesados
de acidez
do limoeiro.

São nuvens sopradas
pelos pulmões pestilentos
dos deuses.

Terão passado
antes de desabarem
noutras paragens,
onde o exército
das cegonhas em revoada
se reuniu
e as espera
para uma refrega
cruenta:

cairá neve
sobre
o campo de batalha.

Será então altura
de apanhar
os limões caídos
com que desdenharei
a noite.

Recompor-me,
libar a peçonha
da indiferença.

Sugar os gomos,
cuspir as sementes.
[A hoe rests in the dry furrow] / [Uma enxada repousa no valado seco]

A hoe rests in the dry furrow:
the greasy handle of greasy hands,
the blunt blade of a stone's pustule.

Beside it, a procession of ants
leads to the warm corpse of a dog,
its back crushed in a slime
of feces and blood.

It smells of cadaverine and methane,
one hears the purging of intestines.

On the intact face,
sweetness and incomprehension.

At the other end,
the sphincter loosens
for the birth of a tapeworm.
Translated by Ricardo Marques
Uma enxada repousa no valado seco:
o cabo seboso da enxúndia das mãos,
a lâmina romba da pústula das pedras.

Ao lado, um préstito de formigas
conduz ao cadáver morno de um cão,
o dorso esmagado numa gosma
de fezes e sangue.

Cheira a cadaverina e a metano,
ouve-se a purga dos intestinos.

No rosto intacto,
doçura e incompreensão.

Na outra extremidade,
o esfíncter afrouxa
para a parição de uma ténia.
[The Wind Is Black in the Wheatfields] / [É negro o vento nos trigais]

The wind is black in the wheatfields,
blue in the day’s last scab.

A host of clouds
parades its procession
of penitents
across the unruly land,

ruffling the river,
darkening the fields,
goading the herds
and inclining to melancholy,
amid the mountings,
the large beasts.

The fur of the great
rats clots over
with nits,
thirsty mosquitoes
moo at the udders
of the moorland cows,
the cold stones
of dusk
whirl
in their vast
transhumance.

Furrowing
its enormous scowl,
a toad spits
its yellowish venom
into the face of a god
passing by,
driven out from his lair.
Translated by Ricardo Marques
É negro o vento nos trigais,
azul na última escara do dia.

Uma hoste das nuvens
passeia o seu cortejo
de penitentes
pela terra indócil,

arrepiando o rio,
toldando os campos,
açulando os rebanhos
e dispondo à melancolia,
no meio das cobrições,
os animais de grande porte.

Coalha de lêndeas
o pêlo das grandes
ratazanas,
mosquitos sedentos
mungem os úberes
das vacas da charneca,
rodopiam,
em sua grande
transumância,
as pedras frias
do entardecer.

Franzindo
a sua enorme carranca,
um sapo cospe
a sua peçonha amarelenta
no rosto de um deus
que passa,
escorraçado do seu covil.
[Insects Ferment] / [Insectos levedam]

Insects ferment
in the bellies of frogs.
Pond skaters boil
the lethargic waters.
The stench of putrefaction.

The last light
plunges down,
flaccid,
devoured
by the black
maw
of the earth,
from which emanates
a morbid
and sulphurous
breath.

Beyond,
the fields agonize.
Paralysed
mid-flight
by the sun’s
icy dart,
the birds glide
fusiform.

Ominous halo
of twilight,
macabre dance
of the moths,
inspired fasting
of inaction.

My mouth tastes
of death.
Joy turns
my blood sour.

Far away
I hear your mass:

the wind sharpens
its knives
upon my ears.
Translated by Ricardo Marques
Insectos levadam
no ventre das rãs.
Alfaiates fervem
as águas letárgicas.
Rescende a putrefacção.

Despenha-se,
flácida,
a última luz,
devorada
pela bocarra
negra
da terra,
de onde emana
um hálito
mórbido
e sulfuroso.

Além,
os campos agonizam.
Paralisadas
em pleno voo
pelo dardo álgido
do sol,
as aves planam
fusiformes.

Ominoso halo
do crepúsculo,
dança macabra
das traças,
inspirado jejum
da inacção.

Sabe-me a boca
a morte.
O júbilo azeda-me
o sangue.

Escuto ao longe
a tua missa:

o vento afia
as suas facas
nos meus ouvidos.
[A Translucent Noon] / [Um meio-dia translúcido]

A translucent noon
and weightless
in the undulating stillness
of the floodplain.

A peopled silence,
an imperceptible frenzy,
the vibrant bustle
of life
within the hour’s immobility.

I too
partake in the silence,
let the venom spread.
Translated by Ricardo Marques
Um meio-dia translúcido
e sem peso
na quietude ondulada
da lezíria.

Um silêncio povoado,
um frenesim imperceptível,
a vibrante azáfama
da vida
na imobilidade da hora.

Também eu
participo do silêncio,
deixo alastrar o veneno.

João Moita

- Portugal -

Poetry

[The sun crackles on the shed’s zinc roof] / [O sol crepita no zinco do barracão]

[Bats Circle] / [Rondam morcegos]

[Like a Ploughshare] / [Como uma relha]

[With a Sound] / [Com um som]

[The Sun Has Not Yet Set] / [Ainda o sol não se pôs]

[A hoe rests in the dry furrow] / [Uma enxada repousa no valado seco]

[The Wind Is Black in the Wheatfields] / [É negro o vento nos trigais]

[Insects Ferment] / [Insectos levedam]

[A Translucent Noon] / [Um meio-dia translúcido]