For the Love of Poetry on Napkins
Guardian teen contributor Pedro shares his thoughts about Pedro Gabriel, a Brazilian artist who writes poetry on napkins. "Besides unusual, the author’s creative process is also influenced by an in-born linguistic plurality. Son of a Brazilian mother with a Swiss father and born in the former French colony of Chad, Pedro was raised speaking French, but has always lived in a house where 'the language we spoke was nobody’s language.' More:
Brazilian poet Pedro Gabriel has always had his head in the clouds, simmering with ideas in a mix of words that, by a twist of fate, led him to stardom, as his books sold more than 200,000 copies. In a country where the habit of reading is not as strong and being published is something extremely difficult, this is praiseworthy.
“I never thought that it would become my source of income. Nowadays I can say that I live from my poetry and illustration, but three years ago that was unthinkable”, says the 32-year-old author.
Naturally, what everyone is wondering is where this idea came from.
The first napkin came to light one day when I was coming back from work and I had forgotten my notebook at home. You may be stuck in traffic, but your ideas are not, and I wanted to write so bad. When I got off the bus, I decided to go to Café Lamas, a traditional bar in Rio de Janeiro which I used to visit, and in that moment the only platform I had was the stack of napkins in front of me. So, very naturally, I started to draw and I was amazed, and then I began to enjoy expressing myself in those tiny and fragile pieces of paper.
After that, Pedro photographed his work and created a Facebook page to display his idea to the public, calling it “My name is Antônio”. But why Antônio? Because he’s shy!
“I like to say that he is me with a bit more courage to express myself. My name is Pedro Antônio Gabriel, but no one calls me Antônio, so by creating this alter-ego I found a way of keeping my identity without signing as Pedro Gabriel.”
Continue at the Guardian.