Manuel A. Pina’s poetry is full of homecomings. It goes round the city sniffing the air and comes home to stroke the cat – and to convert banality into transcendence. Books inhabit the house, single handedly setting their pages in order, like Manuel’s words inside the sentence that he and nobody else heard at the café or on the crowded street. Afterwards, there’s the silence of the walls, hours on the loose. As the cat retreats into sleep, Pina carefully unveils his most naked poem. Done.
Sérgio Godinho
Manuel António Pina (who sadly died in October 2012) was a journalist who lived in Porto. His columns appeared daily in Jornal de Notícias (Porto) and fortnightly in Notícias Magazine (Lisbon). Besides poetry, he also wrote children’s literature, plays, fiction and chronicles.
Poetry books since 2000: Poesia reunida 1974-2001 (2001), Atropelamento e fuga (2002), Os livros (2003), Mesa de Natal (2006), Farewell happy fields e outros poemas (2007), Gatos (2008), Como se desenha uma casa (2011).