Almeida Firmino

Poet. He studied at the Portalegre Lyceum, where he was a student of José Régio, and very early on became familiar with the poetry of Florbela Espanca and António Nobre, in addition to the poetry of his poet-teacher. Before being assigned to the Court of Vila de S. Roque do Pico (Azores), he worked at Lajes Air Base alongside the poet Manuel Machado. He was one of the members of the cultural movement linked to the magazine Gávea-Brown (USA). He disappeared in the ocean waves on the morning of November 14, 1977, at Moínho da Lapinha. A trench coat and an umbrella were, unusually, his last sign of life. According to Álamo Oliveira, «Almeida Firmino is one of the most cherished phenomena of Azorean literature, comparable only to Roberto de Mesquita when we weigh the dramatic intensity that motivated the poetry of both. In truth, Roberto de Mesquita and A. Firmino were subjected to the same trial by fire of insularity, succumbing to it in the paradox of sought-after liberation. However, in A. F., this trial touched the core of heroism, as he voluntarily embraced a process of 'islandization' that would unfold in phases of gradual adherence, giving rise to a kind of collateral personality, which would take ten years to build. [...] To read Almeida Firmino today is to detect his existential drama through the capture of the ambiance that surrounded him and to discover that his work, despite its smallness, offers, by its root and conception, the quality of "universal." His premature "desappearance" does not allow for a full understanding of what his work is and would have been.» He is represented in the anthologies: 14 Poetas de Aqui e de Agora (1972), Antologia de Poesia Açoriana (1977), The Sea Within (1983), 12 Poetas dos Açores (1984), and O Trabalho (1985).