A Fábrica do Poema

Adriana Calcanhotto's song "A Fábrica do Poema" delves into the ethereal and often elusive nature of the creative process, particularly in the crafting of poetry. The lyrics metaphorically compare the act of writing poetry to the construction of a building, with words serving as the fundamental building blocks. The 'ideal architecture' of the poem represents the poet's vision of a perfect creation, where every word fits precisely, much like cement holding together the bricks of a structure. The poet's skill is likened to extracting sparks from gravel and milk from stones, suggesting the extraction of beauty and essence from the mundane or the difficult.

However, the song also captures the fragility of this creative vision. Upon waking, the carefully constructed poem disintegrates, 'fiapo por fiapo' (fiber by fiber), indicating the transient nature of inspiration and the difficulty of capturing it permanently. The imagery of the poem as a building that 'evola-se' (evaporates) like 'cinza de um corpo esvaído de qualquer sentido' (ash of a body devoid of any meaning) conveys the despair and emptiness that can follow when the creative spark is lost. The dream of the perfect poem is shattered, leaving the poet with nothing but the remnants of their once vivid imagination.

The song concludes with a reflection on the tools of poetic language—metonymies, alliterations, metaphors, oxymorons—disappearing into the abyss, underscoring the futility of trying to force creativity. The 'questão-chave' (key question) posed at the end, 'Sob que máscara retornará o recalcado?' (Under what mask will the repressed return?), suggests that the creative impulse, once lost, will eventually resurface in another form, perhaps when least expected. This line encapsulates the cyclical nature of the creative process, where inspiration can be elusive, but the desire to create is persistent and will find its way back to the surface.