A Recent Visit to the Library...

... it had been awhile, so I settled in for a nice afternoon's read of magazines and newspapers. First, I looked to see if there was anything new in the audio books section. Lots of multilated recordings. Only a few intact versions of anything.

But I discovered a new book upstairs that caught my eye - 'Fernando Pessoa & Co.', a volume of selected poems by the Portuguese poet whom I had never heard of. He was a deeply strange man who wrote under a number of different 'heteronyms', or alternate personae. Each had his own personality, interests, style, and in some cases,language. For instance, some of his personae write only in English, others in French. Most, however, wrote in Portuguese. Thus the conceit of the '& Co.' in the title. Pessoa published very little in his lifetime but left a huge body of work, some of it nearly illegible, when he died.

Why did this volume catch my eye? Perhaps because a good friend is a poet, and I wanted to practice reading poetry. More likely it is that when I opened the book by chance my eye fell on a short poem that said exactly, economically, and beautifully a thought I have struggled to articulate for most of my life.

They spoke to me of people and humanity.
But I've never seen people or humanity.
I've seen various people, astonishingly dissimilar,
Each separated from the next by an unpeopled space.

So I checked the book out, and am now trying to read it, though I do not have a mind suited for poetry evidently.