Poetry International Poetry International
Dichter

Rui Cóias

Rui Cóias

Rui Cóias

(Portugal, 1966)
Biografie
Born and raised in Lisbon, Rui Cóias studied law at the University of Coimbra, and then returned to the capital where he worked as a lawyer for nine years before abandoning the profession. He currently studies philosophy at a university in Lisbon.
His first book of poems, A Função do Geógrafo (The Function of the Geographer), was published in 2000, and his second, A Ordem do Mundo (The World’s Order), in 2005; both titles are indicative of this poetry’s concern with landscape – not as something to be meticulously described but as something to be explored, felt, lived. ‘Landscape’ means the places visited or inhabited by the poet – the Azores are the islands referred to in his first book, and the district around Coimbra is mentioned in both books (Ceira, in the poem that begins “Finally you say . . . ”, is a small town not far from Coimbra) – but it also means the historical past, and the poet’s personal past.

Here the distinctions between time and space, and between the personal and impersonal, are blurred. It’s all one vast territory through which the poet journeys, making useful or poignant connections, but without any presumption that he can make the world’s order intelligible. That and other similarly heroic endeavors are impossible (“You’ll never be able to complete / your quest”), which is not, however, a cause for despair. A small, modest happiness is always within our reach, or within our retreat, within us (see the poem ‘What tiny, quivering impulse . . . ’), and we also, more rarely, encounter beauty (‘You’ll never be able to complete’ and ‘He said’). Beauty is what this modern style of classical poetry continually pursues.
© Assunção Mendonça
Portugal
— Europa (Europe), Tinta da China, Lisbon, Portugal — 2016
— A Ordem do Mundo (The World`s Order),  Quasi Edições, Portugal — 2000
— A Função do Geógrafo (The Function of the Geographer), Quasi Edições, Portugal — 2000
 
Netherlands
— Laat de stilte (Let the silence), Uitgeverij Vleugels, The Netherlands — Bilingue edition (dutch/portuguese) — 2018 
 
Mexico
— Las Márgenes Sombrias (The shady margins), El Errante Editorial, Mexico — Bilingue edition () — 2017
 
France
— L`Ordre du Monde (The World`s Order), L `Harmattan éditions, Paris, France — Bilingue edition (french/portuguese) — 2015 & 2019
 
Belgium
— La Nature de la Vie (The Nature of Life), Orfeu, Librarie Portugaise et Galicienne, Brussels, Belgium — Bilingue edition (french/portuguese) — 2014
 
Sponsors
Gemeente Rotterdam
Nederlands Letterenfonds
Stichting Van Beuningen Peterich-fonds
Prins Bernhard cultuurfonds
Lira fonds
Versopolis
J.E. Jurriaanse
Gefinancierd door de Europese Unie
Elise Mathilde Fonds
Stichting Verzameling van Wijngaarden-Boot
Veerhuis
VDM
Partners
LantarenVenster – Verhalenhuis Belvédère