Vozes dos rios e mares: a poética da Cabo-Verdiana Vera Duarte e da Amazonense Marta Cortezão

Abstract

Women writers resisted the patriarchal culture of their time, their voices rising up and metamorphosing into poetry, novels and short stories. Struggling and facing obstacles, women's writing has overcome barriers and made its presence felt. In view of this, the research aims to navigate female poetics, analyzing some poems by Cape Verdean writer Vera Duarte (Vera Valentina Benrós de Melo Duarte Lobo de Pina), present in the books De Risos & Lágrimas (2018) and Amanhã amadrugada (2023), and the poems by Amazonian writer Marta Cortezão, in the books Banzeiro Manso (2017) and Amazonidades: gesta das águas (2021). The aim of the research is to analyze how memory and resistance are expressed in her poems. The methodological paths start from a research that is interdisciplinary in nature, taking as its starting point comparative literature based on Carvalhal (1991, 1997) and the concept of 'Writingsurvival' by the thinker Evaristo (2020). To support the analysis, the research was anchored in thinkers such as Woolf (1991), Saffioti (2015) and Spivak (2010) on patriarchy; in Fanon (1968), Adichie (2019) and Santos (2023) on the colonization of peoples; in Gomes (2008, 2019) and Secco (2022) on Cape Verdean women's literature; in Veiga (1998, 2019) on the history and culture of Cape Verde; in Santiago (1986) and Loureiro (1995) to provide a basis for Amazonian riverside culture; in Halbwachs (1990) on the concept of memory; in Deleuze and Guattari (2002) on the concept of “minor literature” and in Paz (1994) on the erotic language of poems, among other important theorists for this study. By immersing themselves in their poetic voices, the two writers bring out the protagonism of their peoples and of women as subjects of their writing. The stories and memories expressed in their poetry are used to empower and humanize by rescuing the cultural values and dignity of these peoples and their cultures. It's about giving literature a new meaning by bringing back knowledge that has been pushed to the margins by the West, using literature as a weapon to combat any kind of cultural discrimination. Thus, poetic voices of resistance emerge: women who are planting seeds for new generations.