Nosso Nobel

In Stockholm snow Saramago
strides ahead in his Alentejano
capecoat trimmed in dark fur.

No one could have expected this
or would have even brought it up
prior to the accomplished fact.

He lauds his grandfather, then lets
his ghosts do the talking, since he,
Saramago, has walked his walk.

George Monteiro
Lisboa 7 Dec. 1998

(Unpublished poem)

George Monteiro is Professor Emeritus of English and Portuguese and Brazilian Studies, Brown University, and he continues as Adjunct Professor of Portuguese Studies at the same university. Among his recent books are Stephen Crane’s Blue Badge of Courage, Fernando Pessoa and Nineteenth-Century Anglo-American Literature, The Presence of Pessoa, The Presence of Camões, and Conversations with Elizabeth Bishop and Critical Essays on Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. Among his translations are  Iberian Poems by Miguel Torga, A Man Smiles at Death with Half a Face by José Rodrigues Miguéis, Self-Analysis and Thirty Other Poems by Fernando Pessoa, and In Crete, with the Minotaur, and Other Poems by Jorge de Sena.  He has also published two collections of poems, The Coffee Exchange and Double Weaver’s Knot.