Álamo Oliveira’s Plaque on Praia da Vitória’s Walk of Poets

By Katharine F. Baker

As I woke up from a nap after our flight to Terceira in October 2016, my husband returned to our hotel near the marina from his first walk around Praia da Vitória. He asked me about plaques mounted on building sides and stand-alone walls that he’d seen in the town, depicting people’s faces and names, plus a few lines of text — including one honoring our friend Álamo Oliveira.

I didn’t recall seeing any plaques like that in June 2004 on a brief shopping trip to central Praia, or while transferring buses across from the firehouse — nor when John and I stopped with friends a decade later for a snack, after enjoying the scenic overlook from across the harbor.

Walking around downtown Praia da Vitória now, we spotted more of these plaques, each a 2×3 array of square azulejo tiles — white with a monotone line-sketch of a person’s headshot on the left, along with name, vital dates and a few lines of poetry on the right. To my delight, three plaques were of Azorean poets we knew: besides Álamo, native Picoense Urbano Bettencourt and then-recently deceased Terceiran Marcolino Candeias. Others ranged from Lusophone luminaries Camões, Drummond, Garrett, Pessoa, Quental, and Praia native son Vitorino Nemésio to poets we’d never heard of (several of whom turned out to be Terceiran improvisers).

The next year, casting about for a topic for a talk on translation to deliver at the Fall 2017 Associação Internacional dos Colóquios da Lusofonia conference in the Azores, it occurred to me that these plaques might make a promising presentation. Surfing the web, I found background information about the project — learning, for example, that the thirty-four plaques comprising the Passeio dos Poetas [Walk of Poets] were created by Praia da Vitória artist Ramiro Botelho, and installed in 2005 (which explained why I hadn’t seen them in 2004).

Then I hit the figurative motherlode: a webpage with an online compilation by Dutch tourists René and Peter van der Krogt of all but one plaque, along with photos and transcriptions. I’d found my topic. Toronto author Emanuel Melo agreed to collaborate on the talk, including with co-translating all thirty-four poetic citations. I was able to locate a photo elsewhere online of the only plaque missing from the van der Krogts’ page, so Emanuel’s and my album was complete.

Of course, there’s far more to translating than mechanically inputting words from a source language, then retrieving them in the destination one — in this case researching the poets’ lives and works, and seeking context for each one’s quoted passage.  We offered to send the van der Krogts our English translations for their webpage if they would let us use their photos, and they consented. The conference presentation is posted in its Atas. Here is Emanuel’s and my translation of the three lines on Álamo’s plaque, from his 1971 poetry book Pão Verde:

sempre que posso / deixo uma gaivota desenhar-me / a alma

whenever I can / I let a seagull draw / my soul

Editor’s note: On July 7th, one day after Álamo Oliveira’s passing, Filaments began this series Thirty Moons for Álamo–Trinta Luas para o Álamo. Today, we end the series wth this piece by translator Katharine F. Baker, who has worked tirelessly on this project.