In the Middle of the Road
In the middle of the road there was a stone
there was a stone in the middle of the road
there was a stone
in the middle of the road there was a stone.
Never should I forget this event
in the life of my fatigued retinas.
Never should I forget that in the middle of the road
there was a stone
there was a stone in the middle of the road
in the middle of the road there was a stone.
Commentary
Translated by Elizabeth Bishop.
I came across this poem recently because a colleague recommended it to me. It sounds beautiful in the original Portuguese, much better than the English version, says my Brazilian friend. Since the English version is the only one I understand, who am I to argue? :-)
The poem is simplicity itself. I choose to think that it symbolizes an event that altered the course of the poet’s life, but that’s just me.
Here it is in Portuguese:
“No meio do caminho”
No meio do caminho tinha uma pedra
tinha uma pedra no meio do caminho
tinha uma pedra
no meio do caminho tinha uma pedra
Nunca me esquecerei dêsse acontecimento
na vida de minhas retinas tão fatigadas.
Nunca me esquecerei que no meio do caminho
tinha uma pedra
tinha uma pedra no meio do caminho
no meio do caminho tinha uma pedra.
– Carlos Drummond de Andrade
Biography
Andrade, Carlos Drummond de, 1902-87, Brazilian poet. The son of landowners, he worked as a journalist before earning (1925) a degree in pharmacology. In 1928 Andrade became a civil servant while working as a newspaper editor. His first volume of poems, Alguma poesia [some poetry] (1930), exhibited many characteristics of Brazilian modernism. Andrade is considered the major Brazilian poet of his time; his works include Poesias [poems] (1942), A rosa do povo [the people’s rose] (1945), Claro enigma [clear enigma] (1951), A vida passada a limpo [life in a new copy] (1959), and As impurezas do branco [the impurities of white] (1973). He also wrote essays and award-winning translations of European writers.
— Nisha
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From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
Virani Salima · 4 March 2004
I confess my total ignorance here - I don’t “get” it. Can someone please explain to me the significance of the repetition? Has the writer deliberately omitted punctuations?
Thanks in advance,
Salima (with a stone in her head!)
lpaganin · 4 March 2004
I’ve never understood this poem, which Bishop translates in her Complete Poems. Andrade, perhaps the most famous Brazilian poet, writes beautiful, accessible poems, usually. But what on Earth does he intend to do here? And why would Bishop–a poet who increasingly replaced opacity with clear meaning–choose this poem, among all of Andrade’s work, to tranlsate?
The poem strikes me as some sort of arch modernist experiment. Can any Andrade fans lend some insight? After being perplexed by this one for so long, I’d enjoy watching its meaning appear like a comet in murk.
(Incidentally, check out Bishop’s “Song for the Rainy Season,” a poem included on this site. Her description of the Brazilian subtropics is rapturous.)
Dustin Smith
Maraiba Christu · 7 August 2005
I have always loved this poem. I had not heard about the reference to WW2. For me it is a startling expression of the immediacy of experience. One stone, so simple, the stone like bare bones; the stone as a symbol of the enduring stuff of earth we live on, of life itself (we are minerals and water). To encounter it like that, one stone in the middle of the road, consciousness singing like a stone. A stone in the middle of the road (unavoidable, a full encounter). Profoundly meaningful, beautiful in ways too mysterious to explain. How would we express such things without poetry? That’s my take anyway.
Roberta Gould · 29 September 2006
wanted to print up the little stone poem of Drummond de Andrade ..origiginal and translation…Please help..thanks..
roberta
www://robertagould.net
Kees-Jan Donkers · 16 October 2006
Dear …,
I would like to contact Elizabeth Bishop about her translation of this poem. Any idea how to find her?
Thank you,
Kees-Jan Donkerswww.zeghethelder.nu
Elaine Ochi · 2 November 2006
This poem was actually written as a reaction agains conservative poetry. It doesn´t necessarily mean something, it was suppose to shock people who were against the modernist movement. And it did. Nowadays here in Brazil, everybody has heard of this verse that became so famous: “There was a rock in the middle of the street…”