O que quer, o que pode a poesia de Gullar: Limites da palavra entre a vida e a morte

Abstract

This text examines the poetry of Ferreira Gullar through the tension between the awareness of death and reflections on poetic creation, highlighting how these two axes intertwine throughout his work. While the lyrical subject rejects the stagnation of language and aspires to a vital poetry integrated into the present, it simultaneously questions its ability to resist transience. The study traces the author’s trajectory from his early works to his political engagement, emphasizing the oscillation between belief in the transformative power of poetry and skepticism regarding its effectiveness. In his later works, the presence of death intensifies, associated with transience, and poetry assumes a different tone. The horizon of transformation shifts from the social sphere to the interior of the poem. Although distrust in the limits of language persists, Gullar conceives poetry as a space of symbolic elaboration and as the expression of a multiple and collective voice, capable of shaping experience and constituting a search for resistance in the face of finitude.