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by Rosa Alice Branco (Author), Alexis Levitin (Translator)
Love. Sex. Death. Meat. Traffic. Pets. In Cattle of the Lord, Rosa Alice Branco offers a stunning poetic vision at once sacred and profane, a rich evocation of daily life troubled by uneasy sacramentality.
In a collection translated by Alexis Levitin and presented in both Portuguese and English, readers find themselves in a world turned upside down: darkly comic, sensual, and rife with contradiction. Here, liturgical words become lovers' invitations. Cows moo at the heavens. And chickens are lessons on the resurrection.
Over the course of the collection, Branco's unorthodox--even blasphemous--religious sensibility yields something ultimately hopeful: a belief that the physical, the quotidian, and the animalistic are holy, too. Flesh, in all its meanings--the body of the other, caressed; the animals we abuse, and eat; the sacrificial offering of Christ--demands reverence.
Writing at the boundaries of sense and mystification, combining sensuous lyrics and wit with theological interrogation, Branco breaks down what we think we know about religion, faith, and what it means to be human. "Lord, how much compassion will it take for you," her speaker cries, "To be godfather at the Sunday barbecue?"
Author Biography
Rosa Alice Branco is the author of numerous collections of poems in her native Portuguese. In English, her work was featured in "New European Poets" (Graywolf Press, 2008) and has appeared in over thirty magazines. She lives in Porto, Portugal.
Alexis Levitin s thirty-two books in translation include Clarice Lispector s "Soulstorm" and Eugenio de Andrade s "Forbidden Words." Recent publications include "Tapestry of the Sun: An Anthology of Ecuadorian Poetry," cotranslated with Fernando Iturburu; "Brazil: A Traveler s Literary Companion"; and "Blood of the Sun" by Brazil s Salgado Maranhao.
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