Rejection, Repurposing and Renewal of the Self: Bodies as Texts in the Erotic Poetries of Carlos Drummond de Andrade and Ronaldo Wilson

Abstract

This article presents a unique uncommon intertextual staging of two erotic poets whose writings intersect and divide at times, thematically and cross-temporally, to challenge our understanding of the erotic’s liminality. I examine the erotic poetry of Carlos Drummond de Andrade in O amor natural and Ronaldo Wilson’s Poems of the Black Object and Narrative of the Life of the Brown Boy and the White Man, to understand how the body is used to explore identity (re)construction. I show how the incorporation of the body as a source of expression in poetry can be read as transgressive, especially in these pieces.