Photos by JEdgardo Vieira, from Terceira Island

During the Sanjoaninas 2024, taking place in the city of Angra do Hero;ismo, in Terceira Island, Azores, from June 21st until June 30th, Filamentos (arts and letters in the Azorean Diaspora) will be putting forth a daily segment dedicated to the literary tradition in Angra. The city that hosts the annual Sanjoaninas has one of the Azores’ best-known literary traditions. We hope those visiting Angra during his time from the Azorean Diaspora can take advantage of the literary, and all-around cultural aspect of this unique city, including visiting the new hotspot for literature and culture, the bookstore, café and cultural center Home-Sweet-Book (Lar-Doce-Lar). For as José Saramago (Portuguese Nobel in Literature) said: every journey is an adventure, a voyage of discovery.

We begin with what is considered one of Marcolino Candeia’s poems dedicated to this city.

ODE TO ANGRA MY CITY IN AN ELEGY

Angra oh my darling little pocket town

My little slut adorned with tenderness

the vain chatter of Pedro IV’s memory

from the Pipas dock to the ships of India

of Afonso VI drooling like a fool over the Greenery oh my little fool swollen with pride

of here-it-was-only-Portugal. Oh city of Martins Homem*

petrified in Praça Velha*

the world knowledge market of the novelty of other people’s lives

poster patio for tonight’s movie

after stores closed after the routines of everyday employees

with the tired, sad eyes

perched beyond the window my little aproned capital

traced in the papery hand of hospitality.

Oh Angra name of a bay

city sitting on the afternoon bench

city of the sea Felix called you

oh my ignorant petite bourgeoisie

my silly little cretin

you still wear the old-fashioned ribbon bows in your pigtails.

news of the foreign boat coming to unload the wheat. You stayed

around the Customs Dock. Your

entire universe fits there. You stayed with the

belief in the rumor of political speculation. You stayed with the honest and insightful news from your skillfully pasted newspapers

obese, bald-headed, pompous little politicians lying with all their truths and insinuating in the tentacles between their subtle lines.

Oh my city of the sea city of sensual legs crested by the nun’s  nuggets from the pebbles of the cliffs

oh my shameless Lisbon style imitation

caricature on a tiny scale

imitation badly imitated limited

my city of charming surroundings

the orchards and the oranges in São Carlos  my city of dim surroundings

São Mateus da Calheta full of sales and fishermen.

Oh Angra, my unique city

silent enchanted city of fog

memory stretching through the fading mist

no longer of Pedro IV but of you the city

another memory of you truly reborn in yourself

of

your marginals of

your unfortunate workers your fishermen from Corpo Santo* your smoky pensioners in their mute footsteps

your grumpy shoeshine boys who have faded into insignificance

your sitting municipal guards your vendors selling

roasted fava beans and peanuts in Largo

Prior Buse’s Square near your garden

all your unionized and non-unionized employees   your maids

many of them

the extreme and gifted girls who are

your true memory

it’s your great and present memory of the needy and oppressed

present memory of all the others who live off a deprived salary

for deprived people

and forgotten on the doorstep

waiting for a little ray of socialism.

Oh my beloved Angra, truly called Heroism

a city of enchanted fog growing in the silence of so many sorrows.

Your pain is felt in the nights of a mom’s silence

deaf and absurd pierced city

invented portrayal genuinely born

in the daily life of yours

streets of your despised and poor neighborhoods.

True Angra, crowned with work and suffering

lady of the never-known forgotten chronicle of your people

of the inscrutable tingles that run in the secrecy

of your blood

my small cosmopolitan city

endless metropolis of adventures and tidal dreams

my mixture of lollipop and mulled wine

a five-beaked barnacle in the limpets born in the bay

my fragrant chalice

of earthy brandy

sweet and sweaty bread  

in the bowl of your face.

What are we to do in this land my city my people

with our bodies, with our hands, with our arms,

in front of this space of restless waves?

Poem by Marcolino Candeias

Translation by Diniz Borges

            *Praça Velha is the town square in Angra

             * Martins Homem, Portuguese navigator and explorer

            * Corpo Santo is one of the neighborhoods near the port