BODY AND VOICE

REFLECTIONS ABOUT FEMALE IDENTITY AND EROTICISM IN PAULA TAVARES AND GILKA MACHADO’S POETRY

Abstract

The works of Paula Tavares and Gilka Machado dialogue and approximate Angola to Brazil, when they show in their texts protagonisms and peculiar experiences of a feminine universe. Thus, starting from Grosz's reflections on the reconfigurations of bodies, as well as using the considerations of Bataille and Octávio Paz regarding eroticism and its relations with poetry, our work brings poems from O lago da lua (The moon's lake) (1999), by Tavares, and Meu glorioso pecado (My glorious sin) (1928), by Machado, that display the role of women in their voices with themselves and with others. We understand, through reading the poems, the lifelong strength of Paula Tavares and Gilka Machado's poetry and their contribution to the       poetry produced in the Portuguese language. If Tavares' work is built on already solid foundations of Angolan literature, it is with her voice that this literature reaches new projections and launches itself significantly on the international scene, a relevant fact for a living writer, with a markedly feminine, Angolan, and dissonant diction. As for the  Brazilian poet, she displays her expressive vitality and demands a revisitation from the contemporary public. These productions require a careful critical eye, without approaches that border on exoticizing and limiting these poetic veins.