Poetry in the mirror

Abstract

Based on the work of some contemporary Portuguese poets, this study fo­cuses on the relationship between criticism and poetry at the beginning of our twenty-first century, these relations being as narrow as ambiguous. Since the meta-poetic dimension is a core component of contemporary poetry, reflection on poetry is not unique to criticism, understood as an autonomous and separate space from litterary creation. On the contrary, if the consciousness of writing is inseparable from the history of poetry, as argued, it is perhaps the creation of this critical space one of the features of our modernity. Between these two fields, the theoretical or argumentative discourse and the poetic one, the borders are porous today, as it is also argued.