La parola da casa, Serena Piccoli

A Daily Glance

Flávia Rocha's A Casa Azul Ao Meio-Dia/The Blue House Around Noon is a bilingual book with a delicate touch. Rocha looks closely at mundane objects or events and transforms them. I'm not sure in all of the pieces what the transformation means, but the pieces feel significant anyway and seem like things that will click for me at some point. I feel that way about "Selective Memory"/Memória Selectiva":

Any torrent
will drain us underground:

hands drowning in a solution
of clay, water, parts of flowers.

To decant us
from everything we know

and lead us astray
among things other than flowers.

I know the feeling here, but I don't know how to intellectually explain it. I like the image of decanting us from what we know, and the decanting comes from experiencing a torrent. One moment things are certain, then they are washed away, so then what is the "selective" memory?

I'm not sure. Ultimately this collection is a slow and meditative read with well-crafted poems that focus on the actual.