Heteronymous Fernando Pessoa

About this poem

As a fellow Gemini poet, this is my tribute and my salute to you, Fernando Antonio Nogueira Pessoa (1888-1935); you born on June 13, and I, on June 20, 1935; you, incidentally, leaving this earthly domain in the Fall of the year of my birth. I met you quite recently, only just now, introduced by a poet of Latinate mind, a poet of character, employing a pseudonym, that of “El Cortés,” her poetic name, with courtesy rendered, much politeness embedded, impressive the name. Such is Lydia Cortes, a poet of spirit, earthy in nature, like well-seasoned wine, fermented in soil, borinqueña the source, bosomed with souls, all lovers of freedom; embracing those living, and comrades departed— all emblems of loyalty, “ciudadanos del barrio;” del barrio boricua— to join you, Fernando, as comrades-in-arms. This three-line Japanese-style haiku poem, underscores the heteronomous mercurial character and nature of Pessoa as poet, writer, literary critic, and a Surrealist philosopher of the I-ness nature of the Self in its multiple dimensions, while maintaining its autonomous singularity of expression. more »