IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD
BY CARLOS DRUMMOND DE ANDRADE
Translated from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Bishop
In the middle of the road there was a stone
there was a stone in the middle of the road
there was a stone
in the middle of the road there was a stone.
Never should I forget this event
in the life of my fatigued retinas.
Never should I forget that in the middle of the road
there was a stone
there was a stone in the middle of the road
in the middle of the road there was a stone.
Brazil, according to no less an observer than Elizabeth Bishop, is a place where poets hold a place of honor. The Brazilian poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade (October 31, 1902 – August 17, 1987) is universally recognized as the finest and most accessible modern Portuguese-language poet and, along with Pablo Neruda, a poet of the common man, writing of home, family, friends, and love.
This poem is like a joke and we are inclined, first, to smile, yet a moment of thought suffices to restore a serious meaning to such an encounter. It is enough to live truly intensely our meeting with a thing or a life-changing incident to preserve it forever in our memory.
How powerfully has repetition worked in this simple poem! Try to read varying the stress on the words and you will sense its poetic sway.
