Régis Bonvicino
Biography
Régis Rodrigues Bonvicino was part of a generation of Brazilian poets that emerged with the decline of concrete poetry and the beginnings of Tropicalism in the 1970s and came of age in the 1980s and 90s. Born on 25 February 1955 in the global megalopolis of São Paulo, Brazil, Bonvicino often writes about the contemporary urban condition. He recalls the freedom he enjoyed while growing up in a sprawling yet civilized São Paulo, where one could play soccer on the streets and safely roam its various districts. Following high school, Bonvicino attended the School of Law at the University of São Paulo (USP), graduating in 1978. He currently works as a judge. d
Oftentimes the subject of polemical critiques, Bonvicino sees himself as a non-conformist who has contested power relations in a poetry scene he considered insular and closed. Though he has received relatively few awards in his own country, Bonvicino is one of a handful of contemporary Brazilian poets whose work has been translated and published abroad, and has achieved an international reputation. He made his writing debut in 1975 in Jornal do Arena and early on he became interested in poetry, collaborating with Augusto de Campos and other members of the concrete poetry movement in the journal Poesiaem G in the mid-1970s.
Bonvicino launched his first poetry volume, Bicho papel (1974, Paper Animal) in a modest self-published edition of 300 copies. More work appeared soon after: Régis Hotel in 1978, in which he experimented with pop music, humor, comic strips, and slang. His next collection, 33 poemas (1990, 33 Poems), reveals a departure from Bonvicino's earlier work with its intense focus on observations of the natural world but the city is still present in unexpected ways. That book earned Bonvicino the prestigious Prêmio Jabuti in 1991. In Ossos de borboleta (1996, Butterfly Bones) the mood is much more contemplative and less playful than in earlier works. In their conciseness and brevity – images sketched out in just a few words – these texts harken back to haiku and minimalist aesthetics while balancing direct observations of nature in an urban setting with more abstract philosophical reflections.
Bonvicino has also been productive as a poet since the turn of the century. His collections include Remorso do cosmos (de ter vindo ao sol): Junho de 1999-Abril de 2003 (2003, Remorse of the Cosmos [of Having Coming into the Sun] June 1999-April 2003) in which images and language from the media and an awareness of global threats collide with gritty depictions of urban life in São Paulo. Aspects and objects present in (urban) landscapes, including garbage, are treated as products of the same capitalism that gave us the entertainment industry and the commodities we ecstatically consume and subsequently discard in an orderly, “rational” way.
In Página órfã (2007), lixo (Portuguese for “garbage”) and its associated words appear at least 21 times and are metonymically associated with poverty, with beggars, and the homeless who live among the garbage, literally making it their home, their environment. In “De manhã” (“In the Morning”) and “Moradores” (“Residents”), beggars enact an ethics of care by organizing garbage, separating the useless from the useful, repurposing discards to build a dwelling place, even as they are simultaneously exposed to urban pollution. Yet, Bonvicino expresses a radical doubt about the real power of words and poetry in the face of reality, social and environmental.
Beyond the Wall: New Selected Poems, the second English translation of Bonvicino’s work has prompted thoughtful assessments. Marcelo Lotufo, writing for Brasil/Brazil (2017), noted that in this collection “Bonvicino reminds us that all that is solid still melts into air, and capitalism is still capitalism, built on fake beliefs, ever-rising inequality, and environmental crimes.”
