Multitudinous Heart

The most indispensable poems of Brazil''s greatest poet Brazil, according to no less an observer than Elizabeth Bishop, is a place where poets hold a place of honor. "Among men, the name of ‘poet'' is sometimes used as a compliment or term of affection, even if the person referred to is . . . not a poet at all. One of the most famous twentieth-century poets, Manuel Bandeira, was presented with a permanent parking space in front of his apartment house in Rio de Janeiro, with an enamelled sign POETA—although he never owned a car and didn''t know how to drive." In a culture like this, it is difficult to underestimate the importance of the nation''s greatest poet, Carlos Drummond de Andrade. Drummond, the most emblematic Brazilian poet, was a master of transforming the ordinary world, through language, into the sublime. His poems—musical protests, twisted hymns, dissonant celebrations of imperfection—are transcriptions of life itself recorded by a magnanimous