Pedro da Silveira
Nº OF MEETING: II
Pedro Laureano de Mendonça da Silveirawas born in the village of Fajã Grande, Flores Island, on September 5, 1922 and was dubbed “Europe’s westernmost poet.” He was a poet, a translator, a historical researcher and a literary critic, equally preparing an ethnographic work about the island of Flores for which he collected novels, sayings, tales and riddles.
He collaborated with the local, national and foreign press, including the Seara Nova (to whose editorial board he belonged until 1974), the Colóquio-Letras(1973-1991) and the Vértice. From 1945, in the newspaperA Ilha, from the island of São Miguel, he disseminated one of the expressions of Cape Verdeanity, Claridade, aliterary movement named after a magazine first published in 1936 whose dissemination in Portugal
owes him much.
Works of poetry:A Ilha e o Mundo [The Island and the World], 1952; Sinais de Oeste [Western Signals], 1962; Coreografias [Choreographies], (1985); PoemasAusentes [Absent Poems], 1999; Fuiao Mar BuscarLaranjas I [I Went to Sea in Search of Oranges I], Angra do Heroísmo, 1999 (only volume of his complete works that has been published).
Miscellaneous works: Mesa de Amigos [Table of Friends], 2nd edition, 2002 (selection and translation); 43 MédicosPoetas[43 Poet Doctors] (anthology), 1999; Maisalguns romances da Ilha das Flores [A Few More Novels from Flores Island], 1986; Osúltimosluso-brasileiros: sobre a participação de brasileirosnosmovimentosliteráriosportugueses do Realismo à dissolução do Simbolismo[The Last Portuguese-Brazilians: On the Participation of Brazilians in Portuguese Literary Movement from Realism to the Dissolution of Symbolism], 1981; Antologia de poesiaaçoriana: do século XVIII a 1975 [Anthology of Azorean Poetry: From the 18thCentury to 1975], 1977; “Açores” [“Azores”],Grande Dicionário de Literatura Portuguesa e de TeoriaLiterária[Great Dictionary of Portuguese Literature and Literary Theory] (ed. João José Cochofel), 1977, Vol. I; Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote de la Mancha, 1966; “Para a história do povoamento das Ilhas das Flores e do Corvo: com três documentos inéditos” [“FortheHistoryoftheSettlementoftheIslandsof Flores and Corvo: ThreeUnpublishedDocuments”],Boletim do Núcleo Cultural da Horta, Faial, 2, 1960, pp. 175-198.
Politically, he came out as an anarchist given his admiration for the anarcho-syndicalists from Terceira Jaime Brasil and Aurélio Quintanilha.
