O amor natural , a posthumous publication by Drummond and the poet's most erotic book, returns in a new project with an afterword by Manuel Graña Etcheverry.
Erotic poetry became more prevalent in Drummond's work in his later years. "As if Eros were playing his last card against Thanatos," Affonso Romano de Sant'Anna once wrote. Indeed, between 1984 and 1985, Drummond published Corpo and Amar se aprende amando , books that already addressed, albeit less explicitly, the complex themes of sex and physical desire. A third volume of love poems, however, remained unpublished until its posthumous publication in 1992: O amor natural (Natural Love ).
Here, from the outset, Drummond evokes love as his guide. It is love that, in his verses, must unite "soul and desire, member and vulva." Then follows a parade of erotic images, in which the poet recalls or reinvents fellatio and sodomy; forays into a "curly garden" and a "deserted inn"; orgasms that in themselves contain nothing less than the "explanation of the world." Eternity itself, Drummond suggests, is "pure orgasm."
The "milvalent mouth," the "long-lipped" tongue, and the butt—"bumdamel bundalis bundacor bundamor"—thus emerge as sweet elements of fantasy, unleashing the poet's sensuality. But what prevails in these verses, beyond physical pleasure, is a certain longing for love, the "essential word" integrating the ground, the bed, and the cosmos.
The new editions of Carlos Drummond de Andrade's work feature texts edited by experts, with unprecedented access to the collection of annotated copies and manuscripts he left behind. In *O amor natural* , readers will find an afterword by Argentine poet and translator Manuel Graña Etcheverry, as well as selected bibliographies by and about Drummond.
Complete bibliographies, a chronology of the poet's life and work, and variations in the process of fixing the texts are available via the QR code located on the back cover of this volume.