“Death is for others, not for poets”, asserts the poet Nicholas Behr, born in Cuiabá and from Brasilia in verse. He knows, however, that “death is unavoidable, it is waiting ahead.” The certainty of death makes the poet create, “in the illusion, in the hope, that some of their verses will survive”. On the night of this Friday (24), the poet Vicente Sá died in Brasília (DF), aged 68, but his poetry did not.
In addition to being a poet, Vicente Tadeu Maranhão Gomes de Sá was a composer, columnist, novelist, screenwriter and journalist. Born in Pedreiras (MA), he loved the federal capital, especially the Asa Norte neighborhood.
“We are losing a genuinely Brazilian soul. He took Brasília as his city, as his muse, as his source of inspiration, as a character, so to speak”, assesses Nicolas Behr.
According to Behr, Vicente Sá is from the generation that “humanized the model”, the Plano Piloto designed by urban planner Lúcio Costa and adorned by the buildings and monuments of Oscar Niemayer. The generation that began to forge the first genuine cultural movement in the city, back in the 1970s.
For maestro Renio Quintas, contemporary and also musical partner of Vicente Sá, his creation was created in “times of resistance” to the civic-military dictatorship (1964-1985), with the purpose that “the construction of the epic [de Brasília] was successful. That’s why we didn’t leave here.”
In that place where no one left, it was possible to have meetings “without subordinate positions” that would not happen in other places, such as that of Rio de Janeiro native Renio Quintas, who spent his childhood “on the white sands of Copacabana”, and Vicente Sá, from the interior of Maranhão . In the first decades of Brasília, according to the maestro, “it was virtuous and necessary to study at the same public school. There was no alternative.”
Without choice and other possibilities, all that was left was to create. “We discovered, we realized that if we didn’t do it, there wouldn’t be anything, there wouldn’t be anything. Then we started to occupy the spaces. Artists began to occupy galleries, museums and theaters. We were aware that we were really creating the city”, remembers guitarist Sérgio Duboc and Vicente Sá’s song partner.
No single formula
In an interview with Brazil AgencyDuboc says he will miss composing with Vicente Sá. “I’ve gotten used to doing this over the last 45 years.” In such a long time of partnership, there was no single formula for the two to work.
“Sometimes, I would arrive with a song ready and he would write the lyrics. Sometimes I would arrive with a piece of music, he would write the words to that piece and then he would open other doors for me to continue the music and he would go along with me. It also happened that almost when it was time to leave, I would come with a little song idea or he would come with a little lyric idea and another song would come out.”
Lawyer and poet Fabrizio Morelo, who composed with the duo Duboc and Sá, is grateful to Vicente for also being a composer. “He would wait for me sometimes to finish a song, to win the partnership, you know? The song was ready, he had the verse in his head. His verse would be better than mine, actually. But he and Duboc said, ‘let’s wait’. The ball was on the penalty spot, it was just a matter of pushing it towards the goal.”
Verses by Vicente Sá are circulating this Saturday (25) on social networks and apps by artists from Brasília, like those in which he says “I want to die like this/ surrounded by friends and cachaça/ in the lap of my eternal companion/ beautiful/ poet.”
Vicente Sá died of pneumonia, worsened by cancer treatment. He will be held this Sunday (26) at Espaço Cultural Renato Russo (508 Sul) from 10 am. “There will be a celebration with poets and musicians. Let’s celebrate his life and work”, promises maestro Renio Quintas.
