Creative Writing Brazil

EDWARD HIRSCH taught at the creative writing workshop in Brazil.

Creative Writing Brazil is an unique literary workshop in Sao Paulo, Brazil organized by Rattapallax magazine and Academia Interncional de Cinema. The workshops was run by leading American and Brazilian poets, writers and educators and conducted in English. The purpose of the workshop is to experience the culture of Brazil and produce new and complex literary work. Poets and writers who have participated in our trips to Brazil include Pulitzer Prize winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa, Breytan Breytanbach, Jerome Rothenberg, Cecilia Vicuna, Edwin Torres, Nathalie Handal, and Poetry Wales editor Robert Minhinnick.

Participants were involved in a week-long poetry workshop with Edward Hirsch and a translation class on Brazilian poets Carlos Drummond de Andrade and Joao Cabral de Melo Neto. Discussions on Elizabeth Bishop in Brazil and tours of important cultural sites and literary landmarks. Also, casual get togethers with leading contemporary Brazilian poets, editors, writers, translators, and publishers. Workshop was from July 9 to July 16, 2007.

Festa Literaria Internacional de Parati (FLIP)

Nobel Laureates J.M. Coetzee & Nadine Gordimer , Lawrence Wright (Pulitzer Prize for "The Looming Tower) and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga (Babel, 21 Grams & Amores Peros) headlined FLIP in 2007.

FLIP is a leading and truly international literary jamborees, known for the outstanding quality of its guest authors, for the overwhelming enthusiasm of its audiences, and for the town's relaxed hospitality. FLIP has continued to attract some of the world's finest authors including Toni Morrison, Don DeLillo, Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, Margaret Atwood, Paul Auster, Michael Ondaatje, alongside living Brazilian legends such as Chico Buarque and Caetano Veloso. The festival is held in Parati is a colonial sea-side town nestled between the turquoise waters of Ilha Grande Bay and vast swathes of unspoilt Atlantic rainforest. Only a few hours from Sao Paulo. Festival was from July 4 to July 8, 2007. Workshop participants attend FLIP.

The creative writing workshops takes place at a beautiful Spanish-style villa run by Academia Internacional de Cinema, the first independent film school in Brazil. The school is located in a safe residential area of Sao Paulo called Higienopolis, often compared to Beverly Hills. The school is centrally accesible to all parts of the city and about an hour to the beach. There are dozens of traditional and European restaurants close by and several Kosher delicatessens. The school has its own cafe within the facilties and a student lounge with computers and high-speed internet connections. The school has small intimate classrooms, a garden and a big porch.

Paulo Henriques Britto lectured on Elizabeth Bishop.

Paulo Henriques Britto was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1951. His third collection of poems, Trovar Claro, received Brazil's equivalent of the National Book Award from the Biblioteca Nacional, and his fourth book, Macau, won Brazil's most prestigious award, the Portugal Telecom Prize. In 2005, he published his first short story collection, Paraisos artificiais.

Britto is also one of Brazil's principle translators of British and American literature, and received the National Library Foundation's prize for his 1995 translation of E. L. Doctorow's The Waterworks. His other translations include works by Henry James, V. S. Naipaul, Thomas Pynchon, Wallace Stevens, and Elizabeth Bishop's poems about Brazil. He currently teaches at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. A collection of his poems, "Clean Shirt of It" is being released by BOA Editions and translated by Idra Novey. The collection is part of the Lannan Translation Selection Series. Photo left: Britto & Edward Hirsch.

Elizabeth Bishop in Brazil

Elizabeth Bishop lived in Brazil more or less continuously from 1951 to 1966 and then intermittently to 1971. The country functioned as a necessary escape from the deprived and anxious world of her early childhood. Creative Writing Brazil will have a discussion about Bishop's life and work in Brazil. We can also assist you with your travel plans to visit Elizabeth Bishop's house in Ouro Preto and other noted Bishop landmarks in Brazil. Also, introduce you to renowned Bishop scholars and translators of her work.

Translation Workshop

Translation class on Brazilian poets Carlos Drummond de Andrade and Joao Cabral de Melo Neto lead by Flavia Rocha.

Flavia Rocha is a Brazilian poet, journalist and translator living in Brazil. In Sao Paulo, she worked as a staff reporter for magazines Casa Vogue, Carta Capital, Republica, Valor Economico and Bravo!. She has an M.F.A program in Writing at Columbia University and is the editor of Rattapallax magazine. Her first collection of poetry, The Blue House Around Noon was released by Travessa dos Editores in 2004. Her translations of contemporary American and Brazilian poets have appeared in The Chattahoochee Review, Callaloo, Rattapallax, and Poetry Wales.

Tour of Sao Paulo & Salon Reading

Throughout the week, everyone will be having casual get togethers with leading Brazilian poets, editors, writers, and publishers. An important aspect of the workshop is an interaction between participants and their contemporary counterparts in Brazil. You will visit important cultural sites, bookstores, and literary landmarks. All participants will have an opportunity to read at the Salons in Sao Paulo and New York City. Also, Rattapallax magazine will assist with the publication of the work produced during the workshops in literary and online journals.

Board of Advisors

Edward Hirsch is the author of six books of poems: Lay Back the Darkness (Alfred A. Knopf, 2003); On Love (1998); Earthly Measures (1994); The Night Parade (1989); Wild Gratitude (1986), which received the National Book Critics Circle Award; and For the Sleepwalkers (1981), which received the Lavan Younger Poets Award from The Academy of American Poets and the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award from New York University. Hirsch is currently the president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Yusef Komunyakaa numerous books of poems include Thieves of Paradise (1998), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; Neon Vernacular: New & Selected Poems 1977-1989 (1994), for which he received the Pulitzer Prize and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award; and others. His honors include the William Faulkner Prize from the Universite de Rennes, and the Bronze Star for his service in Vietnam, where he served as a correspondent and managing editor of the Southern Cross. In 1999 he was elected a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets.

Bob Holman produced for PBS, The United States of Poetry (USOP), aired nationally in 1996, featuring over sixty poets including Derek Walcott, Joseph Brodsky, Rita Dove, Allen Ginsberg, Czeslaw Milosz, Lou Reed and former President Jimmy Carter. He co-edited Aloud! Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café, the winner of the American Book Award. He won three Emmys over six seasons producing Poetry Spots for WNYC-TV, received a Bessie Performance Award, has twice been Featured Artist at the Chicago Poetry Video Festival and won International Public Television Awards for USOP and Words in Your Face, a production of the PBS series "Alive TV," which he produced and appeared in. The New York Times hailed "Words" as a "breakthrough for New Poetry": a half- hour of poets, rappers and spoken word artists, it was the first national network airing for spoken word poetry.