In "A Rosa do Povo," a book by Carlos Drummond de Andrade, which includes the poem "O Elefante" (The Elephant), the central subject of this work, we also find the poem "Procurada Poesia" (Poetry Sought), in which the poet expresses his concept of the construction of poetic art:
"Penetrate stealthily into the realm of words.
There lie the poems that await to be written.
They are paralyzed, but there is no despair,
there is calm and freshness on the untouched surface."
In "O Elefante," we find a relationship similar to that in the text transcribed above: the poet is the one who confronts his purpose—the word—waiting to decode it, to name it poetically; once this is done, the creator/creation, author/material relationship is established. This fusion will be so intense that we will reach a point where one merges with the other, in the same poetic instant.
The creator/creation dialectic is one of the most frequently addressed points in modern literary art, both in its writing and its criticism. In modern times, content is a consequence of the work the poet does with the word, not its cause anymore. Poetic creation becomes precisely this relationship between the author and their material.
According to Alfredo Bosi, in "O Ser e o Tempo na Poesia" (Being and Time in Poetry), man, when creating, places himself as the "god" of creation, from the moment he, like the "Great Creator," has the power to name beings. To name means to recognize, to identify; in the name, all of the creator's experience is found: it is how they see the world, how they come into contact with it, how they establish this interrelationship. In the case of the poet-creator, this world to be recognized is the "realm of words"; the word is their greatest challenge, in the endeavor to name it, giving it special meanings, making it poetic.
Therefore, by naming, it is as if one places oneself before life, creating a metalinguistic process of it. It is the recognition that the Creator's "Great Work" is incomplete... After all, it is as if He left a part—small only in appearance—to this creature of His, who becomes a creator by relating to it.
The poet's sensitivity recognizes all of this: mirroring the Creator, whose Great Work extends, it unfolds in creation... it unfolds so much that it reaches a moment when there is no difference between one and the other—creator and creation merge into a single space and time, without limits, as resistance—as Alfredo Bosi puts it—to pre-established labeling.
Thus, it also seeks something, both grand and grandiose in its design: its creation is an elephant; it is not "the" elephant but "an" elephant; it does not aim to be unique, defined, or specific, but merely seeks to be one, modestly composed of "few resources"; it is grand (elephant) but undefined (one). It is as if there were the first of a series of paradoxes: "the elephant" as we know it—is extremely defined (visible and ostentatious in its form), but "an elephant"—this one, created by the poet—will be undefined, ethereal, with every right to be so... it is their creation, in its capacity to perceive form, which asks to be interpreted.
The material of which it will be composed will come from the observation of "present life" (which the poet speaks of in "Mãos Dadas" - Holding Hands), part by part, still ethereal, undefined: "A bit of wood / taken from old furniture / perhaps gives it support." This is the intended support for the elephant—"old furniture"; the world, the already existing life, which the poet intends to recreate.
Its essence maintains a diaphanous structure: "... I fill it with cotton, / with carded cotton, with sweetness." It is light—everything we wouldn't expect from an elephant!
The ears are "pensive," maintaining the initially outlined structure: through them, by their hearing, is their initial—though inefficient—access to the world. But "the happiest part / of its architecture" is the trunk. The elephant, as we observe during the assembly process, will have its most possible access through it: it is possible to smell the world, inhale it, and envelop it in the filling of sweetness and cotton, yet it is little possible to hear it and communicate with it. Who would see such an ethereal elephant ("My elephant goes / through the crowded street, / but they don't want to see it")?
This impossibility of communication will be even more apparent in the attempt to depict the tusks. We all know that the world values ivory; people kill for it... and it is precisely this part that the creator cannot build—this one they leave for the circuses; their elephant is for the street.
In the poet's act of placing it on the street, lies the poem's peak tension: the elephant is the poet's creation sent to the streets, in a desire for sensational contact, in a desire for communication... it is wanting to reach the world... the creator exposes themselves through the creature, at the beginning of the fusion between author and material.
The tension arises from the fact that the poetic self will not fulfill their desire. The first indication of this is the fact, already mentioned, of not being able to depict the tusks, precisely what is conventionally observed in an elephant. The richness of its creation will go to the eyes—"the most fluid and permanent part of the elephant, / alien to all deceit," because, as portals of the soul, the eyes transmit and generate life; thus, no one kills for them: no one covets them, because no one understands them.
In this tension, the elephant naively attempts contact, as it "goes in search of friends": "and slowly moves / the sewn skin / where there are cloth flowers / and clouds, allusions / to a more poetic world / where love reorganizes / natural forms." This is its greatest weapon: love. Like Plato, it believes in Love as the greater energy of the Intelligible World, capable of reorganizing, articulating what appears disjointed.
Its innocence is as ethereal as its unknowable form; its perception is not enough to grasp its immense fragility ("the tail threatens to leave it alone"). In a process of gradation, it manages to be "all grace," although "the legs don't help / and its bulging belly / risks collapsing / at the slightest push." The belly, a refuge of life, is also filled with sweetness... but it is still lacking, always lacking, and it is still "hungry." As it is not seen, it runs the risk of being pushed; as it is merely sewn, it runs the risk of bursting and collapsing. Even so, it sustains "its minimal life," even if there is "...in the city / no soul willing / to embrace within itself / this sensitive body's / fugitive image."
Sensitive and funny, two paradoxically intertwined adjectives. The paradox arises from the existence of two angles of focus: it is sensitive in its essence; it is funny from the outsider's perspective—it is touching, but not touchable. It is as if beings, at most, could pity it... but from that to touching it, there is a great distance, given that to get close to what is unknown, it is frightening, it is risky, especially if it is something that could collapse at any moment, so heavy. It is the weight of non-comprehension... the elephant is bloated with so much life; it breathes through its enormous trunk. It is too alive to be borne, hence the idea of comedy... laughter fills the gap left by the lack of understanding: something comical becomes something uncommitted, and therefore, there is no reason to understand.
The world recedes... and it advances, accentuating the initial paradox; all because the "battlefield" invites it. To the detriment of others' laughter, the elephant remains hungry. It is the tension of the Self X World that is reinforced: others laugh; it is hungry. The contrast intensifies with the adversative conjunction used by the poet—"but"—revealing all the disharmony, the disjointedness between the universe of the creator/creature and that of the world.
"But hungry for beings / and pathetic situations" - also (and perhaps, mainly) the pathetic is part of "present life"; however, it must be understood to proceed. The pathetic laughter is the challenge to reach "gatherings under the moonlight / in the deepest ocean / under the roots of trees / or in the bosom of shells / of lights that do not blind / and shine through the thickest trunks"—it is the utmost docility, which seeks to reach what the common never reaches, the living and essential stratum of each being, light, brilliance in totality, from the "deepest ocean" to the "bosom of shells"—the outside (ocean, trees) and the inside (shells)... in an ascending path, without harming anything, "without crushing plants / on the battlefield."
More important than anything is to walk "in search of places, / secrets, episodes / not told in books," that which "men ignore," because they have "their eyelids closed"; again, for man, it is necessary to ignore out of fear of being surprised.
Made of "clouds" and "cloth flowers," it "returns tired / its hesitant paws / dissolve into dust." The steps, hitherto awkward and constant, falter, for a few moments, sad and tired.
"It did not find what it lacked, / what we lack, / I and my elephant, / in whom I love to disguise myself." Up to this point in the poem, we had an elephant walking alone, searching alone, like a created character, "what it lacked, / what we lack." The demonstrative pronoun "o" (it/what) is neutral: the essence sought is vague, ample, too great, because it is light (as previously mentioned), all summarized in the demonstrative "o"; it is reinforced simplicity.
The creation lacks... the creator lacks... more than that, one lacks through the other and vice versa. Finally, "I and my elephant, / in whom I love to disguise myself," in a moment of epiphany for the reader: the fabricated elephant is the poet and their poetry (author/material). This time, the awkwardness from "Poema das Sete Faces" (Poem of the Seven Faces) has transformed into a large, clumsy elephant, retaining, in its origin, the stigma of a crooked character: "its vast ingenuity fell / like simple paper," detached, "and all its content / of forgiveness, of caress, / of feather, of cotton, / gushes onto the rug, / like a dismantled myth"—a sad image that can generate the idea that the creator will give up.
Again, contrary to our expectations, with the simple form characteristic of him, he affirms: "Tomorrow I will start again."
To restart, to rebuild, to redo... poetry, a constant dialogue with the world, perpetuates itself in the certainty of the possibility of search... it is the word becoming life, continuously.
