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.
Today, we feature the poetry of Cecília Meireles, a Brazilian Poet with roots in the Azores.
THE DEAD HORSE
I saw the early morning mist
make silver passes, shift
densities of opal
within sleep’s portico.
On the frontier, a dead horse.
Crystal grains were rolling down
his lustrous flank, and the breeze
twisted his mane in a littlest,
lightest arabesque, sorry adornment
— and his tail stirred, the dead horse.
Still the stars were shining,
and that day’s flowers, sad to say,
had not yet come to light
— but his body was a plot,
garden of lilies, the dead horse.
Many a traveler took note
of fluid music, the dewfall
of big emerald flies
arriving in a noisy gush,
He was listing sorely, the dead horse
And some live horses could be seen
slender and tail as ships,
galloping through the keen air
in profile, joyously dreaming.
White and green the dead horse
in the enormous field without recourse
— and slowly the world between
his eyelashes revolved, all blurred
as in red mirror moons.
Sun shone on the teeth of the dead horse.
But everybody was in a frantic rush
and could not feel how earth
kept searching league upon league
for the nimble, the immense, the ethereal breath
which had escaped that skeleton.
O heavy breast of the dead horse!
TRANSLATION BY JAMES MERRIL
From AN ANTHOLOGY OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY BRAZILIAN POETRY
Edited, with Introduction, by Elizabeth Bishop and Emanuel Brasil
Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press
Sponsored by The Academy of American Poets
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.
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.
Filamentos (artes e letras) 