Reflections on Survival from the Poetry of Josely Vianna Baptista, from the Drawings of Francisco Faria

Abstract

This article aims to read the poem “onde o céu encontra a terra”/ “Where the sky meets the earth”, part of the book Roça barroca by the poet Josely Vianna Baptista (2011), with the homonymous series of drawings by visual artist Francisco Faria (2005). We intend to bring up one of the issues that is important to Latin American studies: the question related to “survival”, which is the points that cross different times and spaces and continue to reverberate in the present time. In this sense, one question guide us: What does mean “survival” in the poem and drawings talked today? Starting from Nancy's considerations about poetry and its comprehensive character, which includes not only language, but “everything that is high and touching” (NANCY, 2013, p. 419, our translations), this article intends to highlight this topic that is still so dear to us. The theoretical basis is the studies of Walter Benjamin, Geroges Didi-Huberman, Jean-Luc Nancy.