The Brazilian concrete poetry shared the modern architecture ideas that run from the broad social concerns of modernism. This was meant to express endless possibilities and , in this case, attacking the Portuguese language. Three of Décio Pignatari’s visual elements, that is, ‘LIFE’, ‘Terra’, and ‘Cola’ clearly illustrate that aspect.

‘Beba Coca Cola’, which is one of Pignatari’s famous concrete poems, means ‘Drink Coca Cola’. In this piece, Decio attacks the advertisement about the beverage coca cola by the Americans. He aims at condemning the culture that makes the drink and exports it worldwide, and also condemns the culture that drinks coca cola. He attacks the use of coca, which refers to the E.coca shrub in South America. The leaves of the shrub are chewed to convey fortitude, but when dried, they form coca(ine)-cocaine (Pignatari 3). The poet exchanges the vowels in the word ‘coca’ to come up with ‘caco’ (Pignatari 5), which refers to ‘shard’. She uses such an economical method to raise a challenging question, whether the future archeologists will be positive about the current generation if the shards they leave as a legacy is the bottles of coca cola, making the environment look filthy ‘cloaca’ (Pignatari 5). The poet, therefore, aimed at the deconstruction of that advertisement icon through scatology and construction of a tomb to the advertisement, which is expressed by the spiral of the consonant ‘c’. This is derived from post-structuralism theory, where deconstruction is meant to oppose the Western thoughts (Culler 126). The repetitive palatable sound in this poem creates some secondary musical performance.

Typographical agraphia also inspired the concrete poetry, which was coined by Stephane Mallarme. The typographical agraphia represented the time in history where literary language persisted to sing the necessity of its death, and this resulted to its freedom later. In her visual element, ‘LIFE’, Pignatari uses typography in a creative way, similar to the other concrete poem writers. She illustrates the power of typography by using bold letters and exchanging the position of the vowel ‘I’, to show how hard life can be, under the neocolonialism.

The poem “Terra” byDécio Pignatari is composed of one word, ‘terra’, which is rearranged to form a pattern. It expresses a thematic element from the words ‘terra a terra’, which only originates from a nucleus word, ‘terra’. The words ‘terra a terra’ are visible throughout the poem, forming a virtual phonetic chorus. From the poem, we get the idea of a man who tilling the land. The poem has allowed a certain number of words, to be able to express its message fully, that is, a thematic number. It expresses its message both graphically and visually, an aspect that helps to drive its message home. The poet sought to bring identity to the community, the group identity (Culler 115) and oppose the French neocolonialism. The design of the poem expresses a great connection between the historical aspect of the Brazilians and their culture. The rectangle-triangle formed makes the repeated words reverberate in a wonderful way, showing the art with which man cultivates his land. In this case, concrete poems worked towards the elimination of Portuguese language and all their culture.

Works cited

Pignatari, Decio. Beba Coca Coal. 1957. December 2012. Web.

Pignatari, Decio. LIFE. June 2010. Web.

Pignatari, Decio. Terra.June 2003. Web.

Culler, Jonathan.  Literary Theory: A Short Introduction. New York: Oxford UP, 2010.  Print.