Yvette Centeno: uma poética ao rés do tempo e das coisas sem tempo ("Entre Silêncios. Poesia 1961-2018")

Like a fold-out map that displays in more or less detail the possible coordinates of locations of interest, a poet’s (almost) complete works collected together in a single volume can be read and analyzed from vari-ous perspectives: chronological, thematic, symbolic. The present essay undertakes a multifaceted reading, both global and analytical, of Yvette K. Centeno`s book of poems Between Silences. Poetry 1961 to 2018. In its rhetorical bareness her poetry gives voice to a distilled awareness of the world made of affections, ranging from pain to joy, from irony to rebellion, from erotic allusion to spiritual inquiry, from subjective passion to universal love, from the woman’s body to the politics of the feminine being, from filial sentiments to the maternal feelings, from the sense of the tragic to the hope of redemption. However, her poetry also makes cultural and literary references that, albeit without programmatic affiliation and with occasional incursions into the French language, undeniably form part of the Portuguese lyrical tradition.