Road-independent spring

In the words of Perfecto E. Cuadrado, in the afterword he wrote for this edition, “The first edition of “Primavera autónoma das estradas” appeared at Assírio & Alvim in 1980.”

Twenty-five years later, the author revised the text for a new edition that is only now definitively returning to the same publisher with whom Mário would end up “substantiating himself,” as Álvaro de Campos used to say of Alberto Caeiro’s relationship with (new) paganism.

Did anything change? Yes, it did, despite Mário’s playful yet serious assertions when, in two or three letters, he swore to me that he “had never changed a single word” throughout the successive editions of his poetic work.