Ana Cristina Cesar - poet of the Mimeograph Generation

Mimeograph Generation or Marginal Poetry

Ana Cristina Cesar, a female Brazilian poet, translator and art critic, was an important character in Brazilian literary history, actively contributing to the political and intellectual discussions of her time.

Endowed with a privileged critical conscience, she believed that Literature and life were inseparable. In the 1970s, she stood out for her intimate poetry marked by informality and her talent for different aspects of intellectual activity.

Ana C, as she was also known, belonged to the group called “Mimeograph Generation” or “Marginal Poetry”, inspired by the counterculture movements. The main characteristic of this generation was the search for alternative means for the circulation of their works, as the big publishers kept their doors closed to these writers.

A revolutionary and “outside the system” movement

“Marginal Poetry”, a Brazilian literary movement of the 1970s and 1980s, got its name not because it was from the periphery, but because of the format in which its works were published and disseminated, that is, on the margins of the publishing market. It flourished in a troubled political moment and under the censorship imposed by the military dictatorship.

This poetic production “outside the system” was disseminated by the poets themselves from small print runs of mimeographed copies distributed from hand to hand in the streets and squares, or even thrown from the top of buildings. They also sold their art at low cost, in bars, squares, theaters, cinemas, universities and so on.

The writers and poets of that time had to deal with the violence of the dictatorship – both the visible, in the streets repressing citizens, and the invisible, which was observed in the mass media. Instead of the classic national themes, addressed by conventional Literature, the authors sought inspiration in subjects such as everyday life, skin color, body and sexuality. This certainly did not please the military.

The production of these poets also reflected the yearnings and anguish of a generation that experienced the implementation of the Institutional Act Number Five, AI-5, and, consequently, could no longer report their stories due to the intense rigor of the censorship. They often criticized the established notion of poetry and the requirement for a reader well prepared to understand their texts.

The everyday and erotic theme was full of sarcasm, humor, irony, profanity and slang from the periphery. Marginal poets refused any literary model and therefore did not “fit” into any school or literary tradition.

The anthology 26 poets today

With the publication of the book 26 poets today, in 1975, Heloísa Buarque de Hollanda, master and doctor in Brazilian Literature, brought together the main marginal writers of the time in an anthology that gave them visibility and provoked a lot of controversy because a good part of the critics did not consider it as poetry the texts selected by her. In 1976, thanks to this book, Ana Cristina Cesar gained greater visibility and fame. Heloísa Buarque would later become her master's supervisor.

The Spanish publishing house Labor, recently arrived in Brazil, invited Heloísa to organize an anthology with the poetry of the so-called Sons of Dictatorship. It would be the first launch of the Brazilian branch. As a result, Marginal Poetry entered the commercial circuit with the endorsement of a major publishing house, which ensured its distribution. This critical presentation contributed to legitimize Marginal Poetry.

A stranger in the nest or a nest stranger to her?

Ana Cristina differed from this group by her own writing style, strongly influenced by the reading of renowned writers and her experience with criticism and translation. The place of Literature, for the author, was a place of resistance. Resistance also to the place where she came from, the middle class of the South Zone of Rio de Janeiro, which did not represent her or, at least, for which she did not want to represent herself. Being in a “special” place within Marginal Poetry also bothered her. She liked to write and to be read, but she avoided showing up. It is inevitable not to notice, in the lyrics of her poems, how this exposure bothered her.

The unique characteristics of her writing

Critics and scholars point to her solid theoretical and academic background as one of the distinguishing elements of her work. Her texts are characterized by a confessional discourse, colloquial tone, irony and fragmentation. Due to her vast intellectual repertoire, her poetry has transcended ideological agendas.

Ana created her own diction, which combined prose and poetry, pop and high Literature, the intimate and the universal, the masculine and the feminine. Due to a unique aesthetic sense, she differentiated herself from her contemporaries. In this sense, her work has unique characteristics, which would not allow her to be fully considered as a marginal poet.

For some scholars, her literary production does not completely break with conventional models and in her can be found references to renowned authors of national and international Literature.

The letter and the diary, two genres marked by intimacy and sometimes considered minor, stand out in Ana Cristina's poetics. In her letters, the writer had a definite addressee, someone to whom she not only made confessions, but also dealt with various subjects. Her diary writing describes everyday situations.

Daily life is presented in her texts as a need to write a diary through poetry. Diary of emotions, of invasions of her own soul, of talking about human body, preferably her. This sometimes brings her regret for having told the fact, but it resonates with relief at having been exposed.

Between diary fragments, fictitious letters, travel notebooks, bold summaries, prose texts and lyrical poems, Ana Cristina captivated her interlocutors, in a permanent game of veiling and unveiling.

Early poems of a child born a poet

As a child, at Bennett High School, where her mother was a teacher, Ana Cristina showed a talent for Literature. In 1956, at just four years old, she recited her first verses to her mother because she still did not have the mastery of writing.

Her first publication of poems, at the age of seven, was in the Rio de Janeiro newspaper Tribuna da Imprensa (Press Tribune). She completed primary and secondary school at the same school, from 1961 to 1963, where she created the newspaper Juventude Infantil (Children's Youth).

The poem Uma poesia de criança (a child's poetry) was one of the first to be published. The composition, with five stanzas, appeared in August 1958 in the school bulletin aimed at early childhood teachers at Bennett High School.

Contact with English Literature and her interest in translation

In 1969, Ana Cristina Cesar did an exchange program in England and spent a period at the University of Essex, in London, with a scholarship granted by Protestant institutions. The contact with English Literature aroused her interest in the translation of literary pieces.

In 1980, she received a Master of Arts degree in Theory and Practice of Literary Translation. Among her most notable works in the genre, The Annotated Bliss stands out, with 80 explanatory notes, a translation of the famous text by Katherine Mansfield, which legitimizes her talent as a translator and constituted her master's thesis in Essex. In this translation, the character Bertha Young lives a moment as if she “had suddenly swallowed the late afternoon sun and it burned inside her chest”.

Suicide, the tragic end of an intense and productive life

On October 29, 1983, at the age of 31, Ana Cristina César threw herself from the seventh floor window of the building where her parents lived. Forty minutes before this act, Ana received a call from the poet and friend Armando Freitas Filho.

The suicide was, symbolically, the seal placed on her life as a poet, which, added to her poetry, transformed the figure of Ana Cristina César into a kind of myth. On the other hand, this brought a negative presupposition to her work and guided critics and readers to welcome her poetry as the writings of a potential suicide who, little by little, reveals her intentions.

Short biography

Ana Cristina Cesar was born on June 2, 1952 in Rio de Janeiro, the daughter of an educated, middle-class Protestant family. Her mother, Maria Luiza Cesar, was a Literature teacher and her father, Waldo Aranha Lenz Cesar, was a sociologist and theologian, with an active participation in the intellectual movement – not just in the religious field. Waldo was a founding member of Editora Terra e Paz.

She graduated in Letters from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, in 1975, and completed her master's degree at the UFRJ School of Communication. In 1975, Heloisa Buarque de Hollanda, also her teacher, would include her in the anthology 26 poets today, a selection of talented representatives of the generation of that decade.

Cesar began publishing poems and poetic prose texts in the 1970s in collections, magazines and alternative newspapers. Her first books, Cenas de Abril (April scenes) and Correspondência Completa (Complete correspondence), were released in independent editions.

Armando Freitas Filho, a Brazilian poet, was Ana Cristina's best friend, to whom she left the responsibility of posthumously taking care of her publications. The author's personal collection is under the tutelage of Instituto Moreira Salles. The family made the donation through a promise that the writings would stay in Rio de Janeiro.

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