Eleven Power Points – George Monteiro

 2.      Loose cannon in the search for truth, Natália contradicts herself (like Whitman, like Pessoa). 

3.      To be within earshot of Natália is to be subject to insult, invective, and laceration. 

4.      Speaking out on everything under the sun, Natália shouts best when she insists that her only concern is Culture.

5.      Given that nothing human is alien to Natália, she takes everything personally. 

6.      Natália speaks out: (a) to share in the pleasure of hearing Natália talk, (b) to keep from hearing the inane talk of

 others, and (c) to shatter the sometimes shameful silences on matters that do or do not matter. 

7.      Natália’s deeds threaten everybody, the potential adversary, even those who think death will put them out of reach.

 8.      Natália offers mariological bones to contend with, for hers is the bold fool’s dint, the foolish sage’s dream of suasion.

 9.      Like Icarus or Sappho or the Man of La Mancha, Natália holds fast to a once and future self, though not without

 fear. 

10.  Natália; the intelligence of a village, the wit and bite of a fishwife. 11.  To visit Natália’s bar botequim in the Largo da Graça was to court experience.   

George Monteiro, Professor Emeritus of English and of Portuguese Studies at Brown University, has interests in the areas of English-language and Portuguese-language literature and culture. He is the author of The Coffee Exchange and Double Weaver’s Knot, books of poetry. Among his other publications are critical studies of Henry James, Stephen Crane, Ernest Hemingway, Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, Luis de Camões, and Fernando Pessoa, as well as translations of the poetry of Jorge de Sena, Miguel Torga, Pedro da Silveira, and Fernando Pessoa, and the prose of José Rodrigues Miguéis and José Saramago. He and his wife make their home in Connecticut.