Some words build bridges, and some words build homes.
The House of Many Shores is such a dwelling — a place where the Portuguese language, scattered by winds of history and tides of migration, gathers under one roof. From Lisbon to Luanda, from Rio to Maputo, from the Atlantic islands to the shores of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, the Portuguese-speaking world carries with it a mosaic of voices: voices of longing and laughter, of exile and return, of memory and hope.

This series opens those doors to English-speaking readers, offering not just translations but acts of hospitality — poems that invite us to sit at the table of many lands, to hear the cadences of a language that has crossed oceans and centuries. In this house, every shore has its place, and every poem is a window to a different horizon.

Here, the sea does not divide; it connects. The language does not limit; it expands. And poetry, as always, reminds us that we belong to more than one place, more than one story, more than one world.

We are delighted to begin this series with the Young Mozambican Poet Ernesto Moamba, from a book available here in the US and Canada.

THE FOOTPRINTS ON THE WALK THROUGH THE WIND BY ERNESTO MOAMBA

You Sleep My Virgin Africa!
Sleep more than a static stone
While you are not awaken
Your world fades away.
Get up from the silence
And walk down on my precious body.
Oh mother mysterious Africa
Dressed of the gold scent
And mineral
How can you wander on the top of loneliness?
My mother
My queen
My Virgin
And idolized vain
I see you tearing
Among the atypical walls of clay pot Bending at
the feet of the cacana and nhangana (1)
from the green resins under the Baobab leaves.

My mother
Your naked eyes reflect
Wounds of despair
Marks of loneliness
Smiles of omission
Historical Governance
And deaths in the hospitals fatalities.
Mother

I see you crying out
On Zambeze mountains
Rivers and lakes of Nile.
I grieve your sharp smiles
Wich today condemn yourself to the loneliness and despair.

Mother
I hear your vocal chord bursting Crying for the hysteria of a
policy
(old and hypocrite)
Your children (in exchange for freedom)
Protecting spells
and accumulated debts. Condemned to work
And the late glory
I see you grieving
(on your knees) digging graves
banished on the umbilicus look.
My mother
I hear you laughing with your hoe
Tearing up the Earth for a crumb.
Tell me mother
Why do you carry scars
My crib heart
Magistrate children condemned without any reason for?
Your blood mother
Irrigating sand in the morning dew
Why tons of mysteries?
Wars don’t save
And delirium of weapons in Muchongwe
Nasty droughts

(1) Cacana and Nhangana are kinds of plants used for cooking in Mozambique

Vision

The House of Many Shores envisions a world where the poetry of the Portuguese-speaking universe — from Portugal to Brazil, from Africa to Asia, and across the diaspora — is heard, valued, and celebrated in English. By bridging continents through verse, the series aspires to create a shared cultural home where readers everywhere can experience the richness, diversity, and humanity of Lusophone voices.

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Mission

The mission of The House of Many Shores is to gather, translate, and publish the poetic traditions of the Portuguese-speaking world in English, making them accessible to a global audience. This series:

• Preserves and amplifies the literary heritage of Lusophone communities.
• Builds bridges across cultures, continents, and generations through the universal language of poetry.
• Honors diversity, showcasing voices from Portugal, Brazil, Africa, Asia, and the diaspora.
• Inspires a sense of belonging, offering the Portuguese-speaking diaspora in North America and beyond a lyrical return to roots while inviting all readers into a shared poetic home.

We thank the Luso-American Education Foundation for its support of this project.