There is Always a Steam next to the Pier

If, as Teixeira de Pascoaes said, being a poet is encouraging words, Joaquim Chito Rodrigues is, deeply, a poet. His verses are not afraid to face concrete love, longing for friends who are no longer alive, the slow taste of each teaching, hard or sweet, of passing time. It is in these verses that sucha a dangerous activity of descending into the darkest caves of the soul begins to bleed ghosts, secrets, colours and changes: that is the force of his poetry. His luminous words, with a reflexive simplicity, reveal the universal fire of feelings in the particular sense of each heart. – Inês Pedrosa