Landscape of the Capibaribe River - Joao Cabral De Melo Neto-Analysis of the Poem

Landscape of the Capibaribe River

Joao Cabral De Melo Neto

About the Poet

Joao Cabral De Melo Neto is a Brazilian poet who served as a diplomat for his country. He is identified with the Generation of 45, a group of poets of the post world war II period. Their poetry is marked by a bare and austere style. There are traces of surrealism and cubism in his  early poetry. His most famous work is The Death and Life of Severino. He is often considered as a member of the concrete poetry movement. Some of his important works are A Knife of All Blade, Museum of Everything and Two Parliaments. His last work is Walking around Seville. Neto is noted for his use of concrete visual imagery in his poems. His poems are not lyrical and he does not use romantic and sentimental elements in his poetry. He believes that writing poetry is a very deliberate process and there is nothing accidental or unpremeditated in art.

Analysis of the Poem

The poem describes the Capibaribe river without any sentimentality. The images in the poem describe a landscape and waterscape that are scarred by waste, poverty and environmental pollution. The poet makes a lot of social commentary through the poem. The poet says that the river does not know the blue rain, the rose coloured fountain, the water in the pitcher and breeze on the water. These are images of relative purity. Thus the poet is suggesting that the river is not at all pure. Then the poet goes on to say that the river knows silt, mud and rust. All three are images of pollution and degradation. This suggests that the river is slowly dying. The poet also says that the river must have known the octopus. This suggests that the biodiversity which once existed in the river is no longer present there. The poet uses the image of the river to make comments on the society at large. The stagnation of the river is symbolic of the stagnation of hospitals and asylums in the place. As long as the river keeps flowing, it can maintain its purity. But the dirt and silt in the river is slowly choking it to death. The sugar factories mentioned in the poem also contribute to the pollution of the poem. Towards the end of the poem the poet challenges the use of the colour blue to represent rivers on maps. The rivers with all their pollution are almost brown in colour. Thus brown is a better colour to represent rivers on maps. He says that it is true not just of the Capibaribe river, but almost all rivers in the world.