‘Um mecanismo simples mas delicado’: Figure, Technics, Trace in Manuel Gusmão’s Pequeno Tratado das Figuras

Abstract

Manuel Gusmão’s poetry distinguishes itself by an incessant and rigorous questioning of the nature of poetry, the power of language and of images,both verbal and other, to construct, evoke and annul reality. His most recent book, Pequeno Tratado das Figuras (2013) is a complex and probing investigation into those topics as well as to the relationship between poetry and cinema, poetry and drawing, between different sign codes and grammars and between nature and technology. Taking recourse to theoretical problematizations of technology in Martin Heidegger and Walter Benjamin, as well as to reflection on the poetry of Gusmão by Rosa Martelo, this essay seeks to start probing some key aspects of Gusmão’s poetry and his use of images, centred on the concept of “figura”.