"Selected Poems" by Manuel Bandeira, translated by David R. Slavitt (2002)

Humility promotes ideas over autobiographical incidents. Economy and simplicity evoke images, persuasive because one's imagination (unlike reason), once enlisted, cannot evade. Slavitt's matter-of-fact translation, untamed by rhyme, has sincerity of a dinner companion, whose thoughts, even if alien, one would not judge.

Bandeira longs for both death and love, in either order. The confidence in the gratification from each is inversely related to familiarity. The gratification's intensity derives from synchrony, sought in reciprocity, understanding, and the coördination of bodies.