“One can be born on an island in two ways,” wrote the poet and novelist Eduardo Bettencourt Pinto. “From the body of a woman or by the glow of sensibility.” In this book-length poem, Azorean Suite/Suite açoriana, award-winning poet Scott Edward Anderson explores the nature of what it is to be born from the splendor of sensibility of his ancestral islands. Using autobiographical elements as well as quotes from Azorean poets, scientists, and naturalists, Anderson stretches the boundaries of personal history and expands the poet’s emotional journey.
As Anderson writes in his introduction, “Frankly, this poet’s emotional journey has become that of a love affair between the Azores and me, and this work serves only as a piece of that story….” The poem appears in its entirety here for the first time, in its English original and translated into Portuguese by the author and Eduardo Bettencourt Pinto, with José Francisco Costa. Azorean Suite/Suite açoriana also serves as a tribute to Azorean poets, emigrants, and those whose diasporic and ancestral ties bind them to the islands in a passionate and tangible way.”
Last modified: 7 de February, 2022
