O CURUPIRA LÍRICO E OUTROS GUARDIÕES AMAZÔNICOS

Desde a chegada dos povos europeus à Amazônia, o folclore e o mito do imaginário amazônico inspiraram o cinema, a música, as expressões literárias e outros meios de representação na Europa e na América Latina. Meu trabalho criativo, que proponho apresentar na forma de poemas na IV Conferência Internacional de Literatura e Meio Ambiente em Manaus 2018, baseia-se nesses processos históricos de trocas culturais e hibridismo. Meus poemas sobre o Curupira e outros seres espirituais místicos da Amazônia levam-nos a refletir sobre os sistemas de crenças dos amazônidas corroborando com a idéia de que existe uma essência, uma substância que une todos os seres. Cosmologias cosmopolíticas, de reciprocidade, forças que habitam o submundo da natureza e mudança de formas representadas nos poemas são também influenciadas pelo estilo dos contadores de histórias da Amazônia. Os poemas também expressam noções de ecologia espiritual que têm raízes profundas nos imaginários amazônicos - imaginários que convidam outros a reconsiderarem a crise ambiental mundial na perspectiva do pensamento amazônico.

“Lyrical Curupira and other Amazonian Guardians.”

(A poetry reading)

Ever since the arrival of European peoples in Amazonia, folklore and myth stemming from the Amazonian imagination have inspired filmmaking, music, literary expressions and other means of representation within Europe and Latin America. My creative work, that I propose to present in the form of poems at the Fourth International Conference of Literature and the Environment in Manaus 2018 draws on these historic processes of cultural exchange and hybridity. My poems on the Curupira and other mythical Amazonian spiritual beings aspire to reflect the belief systems of Amazonians giving credence to the idea that there is a breath, a substance that unites all beings. Cosmopolitics, cosmologies of reciprocity, chthonic forces of nature, and shape-shifting represented in the poems are also influenced by the style of Amazonian storytellers. The poems also express notions of spiritual ecology that have deep roots in Amazonian imaginaries—imaginaries that invite others to reconsider the world´s environmental crisis from the perspective of Amazonian thought.

Biography

Juan Carlos Galeano is a poet, translator, and essayist born in the Amazon region of Colombia. He has published several books of poetry, and has translated North American poets into Spanish. Over a decade of fieldwork on symbolic narratives of riverine and forest people in the Amazon basin resulted in his production of a comprehensive collection of storytelling (Folktales of the Amazon, ABC-CLIO, 2008) the documentary film (The Trees Have a Mother, Films for the Humanities and Sciences, 2008) His poetry inspired by Amazonian cosmologies and the modern world (Amazonia 2003, 2012, and Yakumama and other Mythical Beings, 2014), has been anthologized and published in international journals such Casa de las Américas (Cuba), The Atlantic Monthly and Ploughshares (U.S.). He lives in Tallahassee, Florida, where he teaches Latin American poetry and Amazonian Cultures at Florida State University. He is currently the director of the FSU Service/Learning Program: Journey into Amazonia in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest.