Poetry, Rare and Signed, Translations

The Clean Shirt of It

Signed copies available in limited supply

The Clean Shirt of It marks the first English translation of a full-length poetry title by acclaimed Brazilian poet Paulo Henriques Britto. This is a bilingual edition published in English and Portuguese. As translator Idra Novey writes in her translator's introduction, "No other contemporary Brazilian poets write like Britto. At least not with such a keen sense of the relationship between form and content, or pop culture and high art. However, the artistry of Britto's poems is that a reader doesn't have to recognize the allusions to appreciate the freshness of the imagery and layered meanings suggested in the poems." Britto's subtle use of political allegories written with a thoroughly contemporary poetic voice contributes greatly to the discussion of the role of poetry in politics. He is steeped in Brazilian politics, history, and literature, but also fluent in the language of American history and culture. Thus, his masterful poem "Nine Variations on a Theme of Jim Morrison" presents a uniquely Latin American take on an American pop icon. BOA Editions is proud to introduce American readers to the powerful poetry of Paulo Henriques Britto. "Britto is deeply aware of and involved in the poetics and politics of his country but, as is expressed through his poetry, lives in the shifting, indefinable cultural space that often produces the most felt and honest poetry...His poems manage to be extremely contemporary and timeless, political, yet not rhetorical or nationalistic."--American Poet

Snake Charmer

Between the unsuspecting lines of story,
an insidious idea insinuates itself,

as to suggest another text,
more alive, radical, and honest,

about a slender, venomous truth
beneath the thickly covered paper

and almost impenetrable now--
fortunately,

a final recourse remains:
to stop, turn back. Make common paper

of palimpsest. Now continue,
pick up the sweet flute of literature.

© BOA Editions, Ltd 2007

Available editions:
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Cloth ISBN: 978-1-929918-93-5
Price: $22.95
Publishing Date: July 2007
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-929918-94-2
Price: $16.95
Publishing Date: July 2007

FormatPaperback , Hardcover, Paperback (Signed)

Publication DateJuly 1, 2007

ISBN978-1-929918-93-5

From $16.95

About the Author

Idra Novey

Idra Novey is the translator of The Clean Shirt of It by Paulo Henriques Britto, which won a PEN Translation Fund Award. The winner of a 2005 Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship, her poems have appeared in Ploughshares, The Literary Review, Washington Square, and the poetry anthology Third Rail (Simon & Schuster, 2007). A graduate of Columbia University’s School of the Arts, she has taught writing at Columbia and at the Catholic University of Chile.

Paulo Henriques Britto

Writer, teacher, and translator Paulo Henriques Britto was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1951. His most recent collection, The Clean Shirt of It (BOA Editions 2007), is his first full-length poetry title translated into English, and in 2011 he was featured at the biennial Princeton Poetry Festival. His third collection of poems, Trovar Claro, received Brazil's equivalent of the National Book Award from the Biblioteca Nacional, and his fourth book, Macau, won Brazil's most prestigious award, the Portugal Telecom Prize. In 2005, he published his first short story collection, Paraisos artificiais. Paulo Henriques Britto currently teaches translation and creative writing on the undergraduate level, and poetry translation and literature in the graduate school at PUC-Rio. Has translated about 100 books of mainly poetry and fiction.