CAMPOS, Augusto de 1931-

PERSONAL:

Born 1931, in São Paulo, Brazil.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—c/o Author Mail, Editora Perspectiva, AV. Brigadiero Luis Antonia, 3025/3025, São Paulo, 01401.000 Brazil.

CAREER:

Poet, writer, translator, and critic.

WRITINGS:

O rei menos o reino, 1949-51, 1951.

(With Haroldo de Campos) Sousândrade: o terremoto clandestino, Ministerio de Educação e Cultura, Instituto Nacional do Livro (São Paulo, Brazil), 1960.

(With Haroldo de Campos) Revisão de Sousândrade, Edições Invenção (São Paulo, Brazil), 1964.

(With Haroldo de Campos and Décio Pognatari) Teoria da poesia concreta; textos criticos e manifestos, 1950-1960, Edições Invenção (São Paulo, Brazil), 1965.

(With Haroldo de Campos) Traduzir & trovar (poetas dos séculos XII a XVII Ediçoes Papyrus (São Paulo, Brazil) 1968.

Balanco da bossa; antologia critica da moderna música popular brasileira, Editoria Perspectiva (São Paulo, Brazil), 1968.

Re-visão de Kilkerry, Fundo Estadual de Cultura (São Paulo, Brazil), 1970.

Balanço da bossa e outras bossas, 1974.

Poesia, antipoesia, antropofagia, Cortez & Moraes (São Paulo, Brazil), 1978.

Verso, reverso, controverso, Editora Perspectiva (Sao Paulo, Brazil), 1978.

Poesia, 1949-1979, Livraria Dua Cidades (São Paulo, Brazil), 1979.

Pagu, Patricia Galvão, Brasiliense (São Paulo, Brazil), 1982.

Paul Valéry: a serpente e o pensar, Brasiliense (São Paulo, Brazil), 1984.

O anticritico, Editora Schwarcz (São Paulo, Brazil), 1986.

Linguaviagem, Cia. das Letras (São Paulo, Brazil), 1987.

A margem da margem, Companhia das Letras (São Paulo, Brazil), 1989.

Despoesia, Editoria Perspectiva (São Paulo, Brazil), 1994.

Os sertões dos Campos: duas vezes Euclides, Sette Letras (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1997.

Música de invenção Editora Perspectiva (São Paulo, Brazil), 1998.

Galaxia concreta, Universidad Iberoamericana, Artes de México (Mexico), 1999.

TRANSLATOR

(With Haroldo de Campos and Décio Pignatari) Ezra Pound, Cantares, Ministerio de Educação e Cultura (São Paulo, Brazil), 1960.

e. e. cummings, 10 poemas, Ministerio de Educação e Cultura (São Paulo, Brazil), 1960.

(With Haroldo de Campos) James Joyce and Lewis Carroll, Panorama do Finnegans Wake, Conselho Estadual de Cultura, Comissão de Literatura (São Paulo, Brazil), 1962.

(With Haroldo de Campos) Joaquin de Sousa Andrade, Poesia, AGIR (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1966.

Poesia russa moderna, Civilização Brasileira (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1968.

Louis Zukofsky, A furia de Julia, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1968.

(With José Paulo Paes) Ezra Pound, ABC da literatura, Editora Cultrix (São Paulo, Brazil) 1970.

(With Haroldo de Campos and Décio Pignatari) Mallarmé, Editora Perspectiva (São Paulo, Brazil), 1974.

e.e. cummings, 20 poemas, Editora Noa Noa (Florianópolis, Ilha de Santa Catarina), 1979.

(With Haroldo de Campos) Ezra Pound, Poesia, Editora HUCITEC (São Paulo, Brazil), 1983.

Rilke: poesia-coisa, Imago (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1994.

Hopkins: a beleza dificil, Editora Perspectiva (São Paulo, Brazil), 1997.

Coeditor of Noigandres (avant-garde magazine). Author's works have been translated into a variety of languages, including English, Portuguese, and Spanish.

ADAPTATIONS:

Author's works and translations have been set to music by Brazilian musicians, including Caetano Veloso and Gal Costa.

SIDELIGHTS:

Augusto de Campos is a Brazilian essayist, critic, translator, and author of experimental poetry. Campos was the founder of the concrete poetry movement at the Museum of Modern Art in São Paulo, Brazil, in December, 1956, along with his brother, Haroldo, and Décio Pignatari, the editors of the avantgarde magazine Noigandres. "In his poetry Augusto unites conquests of early twentieth-century poetry with an interest in the plastic arts, graphics, and experimental music," wrote Kenneth David Jackson in World Literature Today.

Concrete poetry emphasizes the visual arrangement of words and non-linguistic elements in the poem rather than the content. In a concrete poem the pattern of the words or the typeface contributes as much to the poem as the meaning of the words. Poems become objects in and of themselves, rather than arrangements of words that form meaning and images. Other types of concrete poetry are intended to be spoken rather than read, or performed by some type of action. Haroldo and Augusto de Campos defined and challenged concrete poetry in their manifesto Teoria da poesia concreto, written in 1965. The poem "Eye," for example, consists of a triangular arrangement of photographs of eyes and mouths. "Pentahexagram to John Cage" evolves from image of the musical staff containing four notes spelling CAGE into the Chinese I Ching. In "Luxo," repetitions of the tiny word "luxos," meaning luxury, combine to form another huge word: "lixo," meaning garbage.

Campos has also translated the work of numerous other poets and writers, including e.e. cummings, Rainer Maria Rilke, Ezra Pound, and Gerard Manly Hopkins.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Bush, Peter, and Kirsten Malmkjaer, editors, Rimbaud's Rainbow: Literary Translation in Higher Education, John Benjamins Publishing Company (Philadelphia, PA), 1998.

Cannibalism and the Colonial World, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge, England), 1998.

PERIODICALS

Brasil Brazil, 1997, George Monteiro, "Rose is a Rose is a Rose is a Rose as Poem: Stein, Hemingway, and Augusto de Campos," pp. 9-17.

Comparatist, May, 1982, "Concrete Poetry into Music," p. 3.

Harvard Library Bulletin, summer, 1992, Roland Green, "From Dante to the Post-Concrete," interview with Augusto de Campos, pp. 19-35.

Minas Gerais, Suplemento Literario September 29, 1984, "Entre a Palavra e o Silencio," p. 8.

Mester, spring, 1985, "Poetamenos," p. 55.

World Literature Today, winter, 1988, Kenneth David Jackson, review of Poesia 1949-1979, p. 108.*