07-01-2012, 05:25 AM
Saudade is such a beautiful word -- isn't it strange that most of the words that have no English equivalent are for emotions? We really write off our feelings too easily... I suppose that's just as well for us, otherwise we'd just be able to use a single word and there'd be no point of a poem 
My own Portuguese is non-existent so I'm grateful for the translations but only read them after trying out the left-hand poem in full first, complete with my mangled pronunciation...
"we must burn her
ancient trees in to capital" -- do you mean "into", to make this about deforestation for profit?
Personally I'd remove "vibrant flora" and start that stanza with "flaming birds" (I took the flaming birds to be flamingos but they could just as easily represent parrots or any other bright species, it's a very good image).
"Our fate in the stars" is bordering on cliche and could just as easily be removed.
Overall, this is a very evocative piece of writing that needs a little tightening up. Billy or Mark will no doubt give you a hand with the format as I'm rubbish at that
Thanks for posting!
My own Portuguese is non-existent so I'm grateful for the translations but only read them after trying out the left-hand poem in full first, complete with my mangled pronunciation...
"we must burn her
ancient trees in to capital" -- do you mean "into", to make this about deforestation for profit?
Personally I'd remove "vibrant flora" and start that stanza with "flaming birds" (I took the flaming birds to be flamingos but they could just as easily represent parrots or any other bright species, it's a very good image).
"Our fate in the stars" is bordering on cliche and could just as easily be removed.
Overall, this is a very evocative piece of writing that needs a little tightening up. Billy or Mark will no doubt give you a hand with the format as I'm rubbish at that
Thanks for posting!
It could be worse