A poem by Alvaro de Campos

• expiringpoet

  27 Sep 06, 20:43

  Extracted from: Poems of Fernando Pessoa.
  Just picked this up from the library today. Some totally fascinating poetry here. Hope you guys enjoy reading this one...
  
  
  "I'm beginning to know myself. I don't exist"
  
  I'm beginning to know myself. I don't exist.
  I'm the space between what I'd like to be and what others made of me.
  Or half that space, because there's life there too...
  So that's what I finally am...
  Turn off the light, close the door, stop shuffling your
  slippers out there in the hall.
  Just let me be at ease and all by myself in my room.
  It's a cheap world.
  
  
• Bluesky_Liz

  28 Sep 06, 15:12

  This is interesting.
  
  
  
  I have a different view from the author though: I exist, though in a blur or maybe like a mercury blob.
• Tranqulity

  28 Sep 06, 17:32

  Originally posted by expiringpoet:
  Extracted from: Poems of Fernando Pessoa.
  Just picked this up from the library today. Some totally fascinating poetry here. Hope you guys enjoy reading this one...
  
  [b]
  "I'm beginning to know myself. I don't exist"
  
  I'm beginning to know myself. I don't exist.
  I'm the space between what I'd like to be and what others made of me.
  Or half that space, because there's life there too...
  So that's what I finally am...
  Turn off the light, close the door, stop shuffling your
  slippers out there in the hall.
  Just let me be at ease and all by myself in my room.
  It's a cheap world.
  
  [/b]

  "I'm the space between what I'd like to be and what others made of me."
  Hmmm.....Likely to be more others make of 'me' than what 'i'd' like to be i guess.
  
• expiringpoet

  28 Sep 06, 22:51

  I think these are feelings or state of dilemmas we've all felt at some point, or maybe many points in our lives To assert our own sense of self or follow the image of what others prefer us to be. The poet, Fernando Pessoa, thru his persona, Alvaro de Campos, felt this dilemma very keenly. The sense of being half of a person, or even nothing at all because he's so lost about who he really is.
  He says:
  
  Yes, I am I. I myself, just what I turned out to be after all.
  A soft of accessory or leftover,
  The foggy suburbs of my sincere emotion,
  It's me inside of me, it's me.
  
  (from poem #481- Introducing Alvaro de Campos)
• expiringpoet

  28 Sep 06, 23:03

  Another short extract from the poem titled Tobacco Shop by same poet. Like it?
  
  How can I tell what I'll be, I who don't know who I am?
  Be what I think? But I keep thinking I'm so many things!
  And so many people think of being the same thing, there just can't be that many!
  Genius? At this moment
  A hundred thousand heads are dreaming they're geniuses like me,
  And who knows if history will remember even one of them.[/b]
• Bluesky_Liz

  29 Sep 06, 08:15

  I think I like the last one better. This is one is too angsy-diary to me.
• expiringpoet

  30 Sep 06, 22:46

  Originally posted by Bluesky_Liz:

  I think I like the last one better. This is one is too angsy-diary to me.

  I guess it takes a confused mind like mine to better appreciate this sort of issues Personally i like it cos it made me think how cookie-cutter human characters and desires are really. So, at the end of the day, what makes us unique really?
• Bluesky_Liz

  1 Oct 06, 00:36

  That's easy:
  
  You are you.
  I am me.
  
  
• DeadPoet

  4 Oct 06, 17:25

  I am who I think I am.