Lupe Cotrim

Lupe Cotrim at a poetry show, 1961

Among the Brazilian poets that appeared in the second half of the 20th century, Lupe Cotrim is a prominent figure. With her work marked by cultured, aristocratic, and sober language, she resorted to symbols and metaphors expressing herself with remarkable economy of words.[15]

Initially, her work was marked by the formalist subjectivism and attachment to the sublime of the 1945s poets, however, she developed her own independent path transitioning from confessional and intimate lyricism to a social criticism marked poetry, in which an elliptical and anti-oratorical language emerges.[16]

Her debut book, Monólogos do Afeto (1956), with illustrations by Darcy Penteado,[17] was well received by the critics and considered one of the main poetry releases of the year.[18] During this period, Lupe Cotrim traveled to Rio de Janeiro to promote her work and met the writer Carlos Drummond de Andrade, with whom she cultivated dialogue and exchanged letters.[19] From 1956 until 1970, she released six more works, among them, Entre a Flor e o Tempo: poesia (1961) which brought a book flap text written by journalist and writer Cassiano Ricardo, presenting the work as a "fascinating lyrical adventure".[20]

Poemas ao Outro, published in 1970 by the State Council of Culture, with a preface by the writer André Carneiro, evidences social concern, resonating an ethical demand present in the Brazilian culture of the 1950s-1960s.[21][22] The work received the Jabuti Award,[23] the Governador do Estado Award, and the poetry award from the Cultural Foundation of the Federal Distric.[24]

In partnership with José Arthur Giannotti, she also translated the essay Sciences humaines et philosophie by the French philosopher and critic Lucien Goldmann.[25] After Lupe Cotrim's death, two more of her works were published: Obra Consentida (1973), composed of a selection of poems from her first five books, and the anthology Encontro (1984), organized by her son Marco Giannotti and with a critical review by the teacher and poet Cacaso.[26]

Lupe Cotrim considered herself a post-Drummondian poet, having been influenced by the poetry of Carlos Drummond de Andrade.[27][28] When reflecting on her works, she considered the first phase of her poetic production "outdated" and stated that "with Inventos, a new epoch of poetry began in me. I stopped seeing myself, stopped showing myself by seeking to give a new facet of my poetry".[29]

From the epigraphs of her first two books, one can see the influences of Provençal troubadours such as Ranier Maria Rilke, Giraut de Borneil, Paul Verlaine, Rabindranath.[30][31] Among the Hispanics, Juan Ramón Jimenez was one of her favorite poets having repercussions in her first poems. From him, Lupe Cotrim selected poems that were published in the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo. Among the Brazilians are Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Manuel Bandeira, Cecília Meireles, Vinícius de Moraes, and others.[32][33]

In her readings, Lupe Cotrim went into areas such as literature, philosophy, and the social sciences, studying texts from psychoanalysis, Simone de Beauvoir's essayistic feminism, and works by authors such as Michel Foucault, Merleau-Ponty, Karl Marx, Heidegger, and Lévi-Strauss.[34]

Her works have been praised by journalists, literary critics and writers, such as César Leal,[35] Lygia Fagundes Telles[35] and Cacaso.[36]

In 1983, the 50th anniversary year of Lupe Cotrim's birth, Renata Pallottini, a poet and also her friend, dedicated a poem to her:[37]

Every poet is a flower that remains/Aerial and frank sword/Against death. Every poet is a color that remains/In the surviving gaze/And in the light of mornings that always return/Lupe/Light of blue/Distant beauty/Antenna over space/Warm flesh/Spoken syllable, nightmares/Transience that is forgotten/And in the struggle for life/Passing/Any poet is a pain that remains.[38]

In 1968, Lupe Cotrim was invited by Professor Julio Garcia Morejón, director of the then School of Cultural Communications (Escola de Comunicações Culturais), later renamed the School of Communications and Arts (Escola de Comunicações e Artes), to join the founding professors of this School. She assumed the chair of Aesthetics in the Department of Historical and Philosophical Studies (Departamento de Estudos Históricos e Filosóficos), later named Department of Communications and Arts (Departamento de Comunicações e Artes).[8][39]

Her remarkable performance facing the challenges of the newly created USP unit and, at the same time, the adverse political conjuncture the country was going through mobilized the students to honor her, naming, in 1970, the school's academic center Centro Acadêmico Lupe Cotrim (CALC).[40][41]

Ismail Xavier, a university professor and also a former student of Lupe Cotrim, notes that the poet-professor conducted the dialogue with the students in a skillful and sensitive manner, expressing her way of being and existing in the world. For him,

She left her mark and her inspiration as a poet and teacher, someone whose frank dialogue generated debates in which she exposed herself in that intense way that was characteristic of her, and made us live the cultural moment in greater depth, whether in discussing art exhibitions, in particular the São Paulo Art Biennial, films or plays; all done in such a way as to connect the more conceptual reflection on the arts and the course of aesthetics to the critical activity directed at the contemporary.[42]

• 1984: Encontro - Anthology of poems selected by Marco Giannotti.[43]
• 1973: Obra Consentida[44]
• 1970: Poemas ao Outro[22]
• 1967: Inventos: poesia[45]
• 1964: O Poeta e o Mundo: poesia[46]
• 1963: Cânticos da Terra[47]
• 1961: Entre a Flor e o Tempo: poesia[20]
• 1959: Raiz Comum[31]
• 1956: Monólogos do Afeto[17]