First poems from his youth already revealed Orides Fontela’s greatness

Honored writer at the Paraty International Literary Festival (Flip) this year, Orides Fontela was already a great poet when she was still writing her first verses as a teenager, in São João da Boa Vista, in the interior of São Paulo. The poems from that time also revealed what would become a hallmark of his work: conciseness and rigor in language that conveyed profound reflections. The poem Elegia, published in the local newspaper O Município, in 1965, caught the attention of Davi Arrigucci Jr., a fellow countryman from Orides who, at the time, was studying literature.

He is currently a literary critic and retired professor of literary theory at the University of São Paulo (USP). He encouraged Orides to collect the poems in a book and move to the capital of São Paulo. Related news: Flip celebrates Orides Fontela's legacy with the launch of new works.

Activist Angela Davis is featured in Sesc’s programming on Flip. Flip announces Orides Fontela as honored author of 2026. “He met Orides, casually, there in the city and said: ‘Do you have anything else? Let me see’.

And she showed a folder of her poems. He thought it was very good, took it to São Paulo and gave it to critics", said Cristina Yamazaki, editor of Hedra, who worked on the recent reissue of the poet's works. Since the beginning of his career, Orides had enthusiasts such as the literary critic Antonio Candido and the philosopher Marilena Chaui, who would later be his professor on the philosophy course at the University of São Paulo (USP).

Daughter of a carpenter and a housewife, Orides was taught literacy by her mother. "She emerged as a ready-made poet. She has five books, and it's not like she has a progression between books.

From her first book, which are these youthful poems, she was already recognized as a great poet, despite not being known to the general public", he highlighted, in an interview with Agência Brasil. With just a few words, Orides constructed poems that carry multiple meanings, with poetic and philosophical density, which was also already recognized by critics and writers. "Antonio Candido, for example, used an expression that was repeated a lot [about his work], which is 'parsimonious opulence'.

She can produce a lot of meaning with few words. Twenty-fourth edition of Flip pays homage to the poet Orides Fontela - Nagib/Disclosure “She purifies the language until she reaches the core of the word, she carries out many experiments until she takes us to [a kind of] a nucleus of silence. Silence is very important in her work.

He is part of it, he also makes up the poems”, reported Cristina. "She has such a beautiful poem in which she talks about knowing silence by heart. That's it, she doesn't want to profane silence with any words.

And she is very precise", he added. Orides' training in philosophy is also a reference in his poems. “She wrote a poem called Kant (reread), in which she gives a poetic reading of Kant”, recalled the editor.

She highlighted that Orides' poetry does not incorporate autobiographical elements, his writing was not focused on a personal life dimension. Orides' books To celebrate Orides' work and legacy, there will be three launches during Flip: an illustrated book of poems by the author for children and young people, an unprecedented collection of critical writings and interviews, in addition to the new edition – revised and expanded – of the poet's biography, all by the publisher Hedra. Furthermore, Hedra holds the rights to the poet's already published works and has released a new edition of all of them in recent months.

Throughout his career, Orides published five books of poetry: Transposta (1969), Helianto (1973), Alba (1983), Rosácea (1986) and Teia (1996). With Alba, which has a preface by critic Antonio Candido, she won the Jabuti Prize in the Poetry category. Cristina Yamazaki says that, in addition to the editions organizer, Ieda Lebensztayn, there was joint work with Augusto Massi, who was a friend and editor of Orides.

“We did research on manuscripts, typescripts, materials that we could include in the works. We found, for example, Antonio Candido's notes in a poem that she later incorporated. She had super special readers.

The team also obtained images that were not widely circulated. Orides' portraits ended up being repeated in publicity, with records especially from the 1990s. “We looked for things from her childhood, her youth, all the material we could. But without overloading the works because they are not works for critics either, they are for a wide audience. A curiosity is that some Orides originals were scattered in different hands.