Mini-Portrait of This Year’s Golden Wreath Bearer – Vasco Grasa Mura – Poet Erudite

Vasco Grasa Mura

      (Vecer, 25.08.2004) - This year’s laureate of Struga Poetry Evenings, Portuguese poet Vasco Grasa Mura, is one of the most eminent living Portuguese poetic figures, whose word is accessible to the readers for more than 4 decades. He appeared in literature in 1963 with song collection “Changed Measure”, followed by 15 other books. He entered the world of prose in 1987 with novel “Four Last Songs”, followed by “Shipwreck of Seculveda” (1988), “Leaving of Sogonisba at 6,12h in the Morning” (1993), “Death of Nobody” (1998), “My Love, Night Time” (2001), and “Secret of Zulmira” (2001). He also wrote dramas “Dance of Orphans” and “List of Mofino Mendes”.
Grasa Mura is known as an exceptional translator of Dante, Shakespeare, Lorka, Rilke etc. He has also written numerous essays on poetry and painting, winning numerous awards in Portugal and Europe, while a selection of his poetry has been translated in France, Italy, Spain, and Sweden. On Grasa Mura, Mark Blanche says that he is a, “poet erudite, poet of references...”, adding, “it is not a purely learned poetry – erudition and everyday experience of Grasa Mura interweave in a dense amalgam, in which the sense irritations and facts that refer to renowned historic and literary individuals are equaled with by significance and value. The process of omitting capital letters of names, works, places of this poet is in function of his understanding of equality among momentary impressions, before everyday images and cultural data, which cover a rich and deep knowledge”.