Clementino Domingos Baeta

Popular poet. He was born into a family of poor farmers, whose father, José Baeta, was also an excellent quatrain writer. He became known, while still young, in the «court» of the poet Aleixo, who traveled through the parishes of the municipality accompanying flocks or selling lottery tickets, quickly noticing great talent in the 12-year-old child. Aleixo even confided to him that when he died, he would have him as his legitimate successor. Due to lack of means, he only completed the third grade, leaving him with the regret in the verses he later composed of not having continued his studies. As an adult, he cycled more than twenty kilometers to attend the adult night school in Faro, where he completed the 4th grade. The meager sustenance obtained from selling wood was not enough for the family, and at 34, in 1955, he emigrated to Venezuela, following the example of many other compatriots. He worked in commerce until he established a baking industry, then achieving relative economic comfort. After 25 years away, he decided to return to his homeland, where he arrived in 1980. For poetry, which he had never neglected, he was now entirely available. His style of versification, very much in the manner of the poet Aleixo, immediately stood out, also because he carried in his memory some forgotten quatrains of the greatest of the Algarve's popular poets. This led him to the idea of also publishing his verses in a book that, like Aleixo's, would be a kind of legacy, or message of memory, for his natural heirs. The difficult task of selecting, coordinating, and presenting his best work was undertaken by Dr. José Ruivinho Brazão, who published a compilation titled Sonhos de Emigrante, Lisboa, 1990.