The Marriage of the Portuguese: Expanded Edition

In this newly expanded edition of The Marriage of the Portuguese, first published in 1978, Sam Pereira encounters the world as it exists now, three decades later, and weaves poetry around his signature realization of sometimes painful, sometimes joyous experience. Often cynical and at times somewhat risqué, this is the work of a man who has lived fully those three additional decades and survived them handily, having learned to accept life’s uncertainties—indeed to embrace them—even as he recognizes that knowledge is at best fleeting.

In poems evocative of times past, The Marriage of the Portuguese is replete with images of seas both literal and metaphorical—the earth’s oceans and the troubled waters of the emotions. Throughout, he maintains the dignity his ancestors demanded, while intentionally courting risks that are inescapable. This is the work of someone fully experiencing what it means to be human in a society that continually threatens that humanity. Caught up in familial complexities inherent in being third-generation Portuguese in America, Pereira’s theme remains one of positive belief—even if not strictly the belief of his ancestors, nevertheless belief true to his rich Portuguese heritage.

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The Marriage of the Portuguese: Expanded Edition

In this newly expanded edition of The Marriage of the Portuguese, first published in 1978, Sam Pereira encounters the world as it exists now, three decades later, and weaves poetry around his signature realization of sometimes painful, sometimes joyous experience. Often cynical and at times somewhat risqué, this is the work of a man who has lived fully those three additional decades and survived them handily, having learned to accept life’s uncertainties—indeed to embrace them—even as he recognizes that knowledge is at best fleeting.

In poems evocative of times past, The Marriage of the Portuguese is replete with images of seas both literal and metaphorical—the earth’s oceans and the troubled waters of the emotions. Throughout, he maintains the dignity his ancestors demanded, while intentionally courting risks that are inescapable. This is the work of someone fully experiencing what it means to be human in a society that continually threatens that humanity. Caught up in familial complexities inherent in being third-generation Portuguese in America, Pereira’s theme remains one of positive belief—even if not strictly the belief of his ancestors, nevertheless belief true to his rich Portuguese heritage.

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The Marriage of the Portuguese: Expanded Edition

The Marriage of the Portuguese: Expanded Edition

The Marriage of the Portuguese: Expanded Edition

The Marriage of the Portuguese: Expanded Edition

Paperback(Expanded)

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Overview

In this newly expanded edition of The Marriage of the Portuguese, first published in 1978, Sam Pereira encounters the world as it exists now, three decades later, and weaves poetry around his signature realization of sometimes painful, sometimes joyous experience. Often cynical and at times somewhat risqué, this is the work of a man who has lived fully those three additional decades and survived them handily, having learned to accept life’s uncertainties—indeed to embrace them—even as he recognizes that knowledge is at best fleeting.

In poems evocative of times past, The Marriage of the Portuguese is replete with images of seas both literal and metaphorical—the earth’s oceans and the troubled waters of the emotions. Throughout, he maintains the dignity his ancestors demanded, while intentionally courting risks that are inescapable. This is the work of someone fully experiencing what it means to be human in a society that continually threatens that humanity. Caught up in familial complexities inherent in being third-generation Portuguese in America, Pereira’s theme remains one of positive belief—even if not strictly the belief of his ancestors, nevertheless belief true to his rich Portuguese heritage.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781933227344
Publisher: Tagus Press at UMass Dartmouth
Publication date: 04/10/2012
Series: Portuguese in the Americas Series , #16
Edition description: Expanded
Pages: 104
Product dimensions: 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

SAM PEREIRA’s books include Brittle Water and A Café in Boca. He lives and teaches in California’s San Joaquin Valley.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Foreword to the Expanded Edition — Frank X. Gaspar
Preface
PART ONE
The Marriage of the Portuguese
A Disease
A Place Like Syosset
Backtrack: Home Again:
Fado
Dying in California
Sursum Corda
Jubal
An Azure Definition
PART TWO
This Marriage Would Have No Children
Order to God
The Prayer These Days
Black Paper
Listen, I Would Have Wept
Charting a Course for Cancer
Names: A Wedding March
PART THREE
Sorrow
Events Up to the Deal
Anniversary Tale
Alcohol & Rooms
Friday Afternoon Devotions
A Farewell
PART FOUR
The Finest Cities
As Though It Mattered
At Six There Was No Prayer
California Flush
Sabotage
Temporary
The Jars
PART FIVE: A LATER MARRIAGE
Villanelle for an Old Man
The Importance of Meat When Distressed
Horoscope
The White Kaywoodie
The Wind Is Out of the East
Old Habits
Radio Hangover
The Sad Man’s Orange Chambray
Nothing
The Biblical Nature of Bread
Fedora
In the Club Car Light
Cocktails with Girls
Another Murder to Music
A Hospital in California
The Return of Standard Time
The Gloxinia in Her Glass
The Sugars of Terceira

What People are Saying About This

David St. John

Praise for A Café in Boca:
“I’ve been an admirer of Sam Pereira’s poetry for thirty years now, marvelling constantly at his intelligence and humor, his bravado and high style. Sam Pereira’s poems are often both disarming and alarming, or perhaps, first alarming, and then tenderly disarming.”

M. L. Williams

“The poems, original and new, are fresh, timely, and subversive-noir adventures set in whiskey-light and bloodlust, measured by deft moments of surrealism and surprising, focused imagery. . . . Sam Pereira is an essential voice in American poetry.”

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