Mia Couto, a threshold poetry

Abstract

Based on Walter Benjamin's idea of limiar, we propose a reading of poems by Mozambican poet Mia Couto, considering two aspects of his poetry. The first would be the poetry focussed on oneself, in which the poetic subject seeks to understand himself as a poet and as an integrated part of his land. The second would be what we call here “poems of the other”. This poetry is closer to a limair, a threshold that blurs the firm lines of borders. For Mia Couto, being seems to necessarily integrate the other and allow oneself to be in this in-between place of the self and the not-self, a space that seems to be especially important for his poetry, which is inscribed between an individualising lyricism and a lyric of friction with the other. This duality (or even indistinction?) is present in several of his poems. In order to reflect on a “threshold poetry”, we will consider poems from Vagas e Lumes, published in 2014.