Groping poetry, today, aesthetics, democracy: a conversation with Sousa Dias

Abstract

Poetry is an idea that cannot be pronounced without open a territory of vast and problematic senses. Thinking of it, at a certain historical moment and in a certain place, it is a task that slips between aesthetics and politics. In Portugal, contemporaneously, one of the keenest thinkers among those who reflect on poetry, and art in general, is Sousa Dias. In texts such as “Poesia, arte bilingue” and “A experiência poética”, Sousa Dias is a prolific interlocutor for subjects that are of great interest to this essay, such as the possibility of, in the universe where we can conventionally name the word poetry, deserarchization and democracy building. It becomes inevitable to reflect, then, on the relation between aesthetics and ethics and on what can be considered a content colonization in times of excessive communication. To this reflection, besides Sousa Dias, other thinkers and critics will be invited to expose their voices, as well as poets, of course.