Translated by Lesley Saunders
PERISHABLE
Though perishable
it will invent itself,
the poem
With a wrench of the hand
out of the ineffable
With lines of skilfulness
and thistle
between sonnet and sonata
Cantata and violin
HIDDEN WINGS
Who can know
the soul
of poets?
The flame
of bewilderment
the ardour agape
Who can comprehend
the ineffable
the flight of hidden wings
Whisper of the invisible
where
time missteps
SLEIGHT OF HAND
As fate prostrates me
and I raise myself
ignoring the assault with sleight of hand
The fever of foliage at the root
of silence
The blackness of fear
nicking the skin
Death has fallen sick
the delicacy of its wing
the cleft in the soul self-entangled
The burning doubt
that is never quenched
but goes on tormenting me my life through
("Inquietude")
POINT OF HONOUR
I disquiet the wildest feelings
my embrace a vast space
I fly in the face of love
disobey and dismantle
I mislay my boundaries
set fires incessantly
insist on tracing the female
seize hold tear up go wild
I stand in the way of my fate
contradict what I hear
block my ears to what they tell me
make believe replace make do
refuse to be my own mirror-image
ravaging all my dreams
I flout their rules of delusion
float off wherever I choose
I am witch
I am sorceress
I am poetess and unloosed
I write
and spit on the blaze
(from Point of Honour: Selected Poems of Maria Teresa Horta, Two Rivers Press 2018)
Maria Teresa studied at the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon. She was part of the Portuguese Feminist Movement, together with Isabel Maria Barreno and Maria Velho da Costa, known as the Three Maries. They launched the book Novas Cartas Portuguesas, which had a great impact back in the dictatorship times. She published a number of texts in newspapers, including Diário de Lisboa, A Capital, República, O Século, Diário de Notícias and Jornal de Letras e Artes, among others. She was also editor in chief of the magazine Mulheres. She was a militant for the Portuguese Communist Party for 14 years. She published around 40 books, including poetry and fiction. She was awarded the Prémio D. Dinis 2011 from Fundação Casa de Mateus for her book "As Luzes de Leonor”, the Prémio Consagração de Carreira da Sociedade Portuguesa de Autores and the Prémio Literário Casino da Póvoa 2021, among others.
Lesley Saunders’ most recent poetry collections are This Thing of Blood & Love (Two Rivers Press, 2022) and, with Rebecca Swainston, Days of Wonder (Hippocrates Press, 2021), a record of the first year of the Covid pandemic. Her translations – including the poem that won the 2016 Stephen Spender award – of renowned Portuguese poet Maria Teresa Horta were published as Point of Honour (Two Rivers Press, 2019). Lesley works with artists, sculptors, musicians and dancers as well as other poets. She is a visiting professor at UCL Institute of Education, and an honorary research fellow at Oxford University Department of Education.