Fernando Pessoa Poems

The poems compiled in this book come from Mensagem, the only book of Portuguese written poetry published in the lifetime of his writer, Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935). Pessoa is the author of a vast range of work universally recognised, a poet who diversified under pen-names (the main ones: Alberto Cairo, Alvaro de Campos, Ricardo Reis, Pessoa himself, and the half pen-name Bernardo Soares). Through their voices he sailed out to find the unknown, whatever would arise from the journey that was his writing and the words, which it gave forth.

There is in Fernando Pessoa a relationship 'par excellence' with the sea - the sense of distance, the intelligence in that remoteness is the way to nearness, to a closeness with the things and beings around us, imperceptible under the rigidity or force of concepts.