Maíra Mendes Galvão
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mmendesgalvao.bsky.social
Maíra Mendes Galvão
@mmendesgalvao.bsky.social
2.2K followers 3.1K following 460 posts
Translator. PhD candidate @ UMass Amherst. Early Modern Iberia, Translation Theory, Premodern Women. FLAD/BNP Summer Fellow 2025.
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mmendesgalvao.bsky.social
I miss translating literature so much. last week I read a chapter from henry berlin’s “alone together” for @albertlloret.bsky.social’s class and couldn’t resist trying to translate the ausiàs march excerpts into portuguese.
here’s one example (lines 9-12) from poem XIII.
image of lines 9-12 of poem xiii by ausiàs march in the original catalan and a translation into portuguese. original: Cascú requer e vol a son semblant; per ço no·m plau la pràtica dels vius. D’imaginar mon estat són esquius; sí com d’om mort, de mi prenen espant. translation: Toda gente gosta de quem lhe é irmão; por isso não m'apraz a parla dos vivos. De imaginar meu estado são esquivos; assim como a um morto, me têm aversão.
October 29, 2025 at 2:56 PM
mmendesgalvao.bsky.social
detail from the house of the fountains (1st-2nd C.) in the ruins of conimbriga roman archaeological site near coimbra, in portugal. taken by me in august this year. #MosaicMonday
Roman mosaic in House of the Fountains (Casa dos Repuxos) from the 1st Century (or 2nd, when the house was renovated). It belongs to the Conímbriga arachaeological site near Coimbra, in Portugal. The mosaic features geometric motifs, interlaced frames, and circular elements depicting fishes, as well as a central cartouche depicting water creatures such as merfolk).
September 22, 2025 at 6:43 PM
mmendesgalvao.bsky.social
I really like this picture taken by the amazing Raluca Tanasescu @ecoart.bsky.social at #Trextuality2Conference. It was great to be back in Galway and I was happy as a clam sharing a panel with Mairéad Byrne and Xiaojing Zeng.
Me, Maíra Mendes Galvão, just before presenting my panel at the Trextuality 2 Conference in Galway, Ireland. I am a white woman wearing glasses, a white muslin blouse and black pants, sitting on a desk with a computer, a tablet and other odds and ends, and there is a big screen in the background showing the slides to my presentation “Place as Poetry, Male as Female, Secular as Sacred, Movement as Cloister: an Interepistemic Translation Experiment in 17th Century Iberia”.
September 19, 2025 at 3:40 PM
mmendesgalvao.bsky.social
It was lovely to share a session today with Mairéad Byrne, whose academic and poetic work I admire. #trextuality2conference
Professor and poet Mairéad Byrne delivering her paper “Blazón, dress, and what is not translated in Brian Merriman’s Cúirt An Mhean-Oíche” at the conference Trextuality 2.
September 5, 2025 at 6:46 PM
mmendesgalvao.bsky.social
Trextuality 2 keynotes: Karen Bennett yesterday and @piotrblum.bsky.social today. Amazing talks both! #trextuality2conference
Karen Bennett delivering her keynote talk at the conference Trextuality 2 in Galway, Ireland, on September 4, 2025. Piotr Blumczynski delivering his keynote talk at the conference Trextuality 2 in Galway, Ireland, on September 5, 2025.
September 5, 2025 at 6:41 PM
mmendesgalvao.bsky.social
In Dublin now after 3 months in Portugal. Heading to Galway on Wednesday for #TrextualityII! Beautiful day today with a look around Howth then the rolling hills and mountains of Killakee. I LOVED the marshy boggy vegetation there.
picture taken off a plane window with pet of a turbine visible against the maritime landscape as the plane approached dublin. I think the pointy patch of land on the right side is ireland’s eye, an island off of howth.
August 31, 2025 at 9:58 PM
mmendesgalvao.bsky.social
17th century hermitage in the Buçaco National Park, once a Carmelite desert belonging to the Santa Cruz do Buçaco male monastery. The presence of women in the area was forbidden by Pope Gregory XV. No, I’m not the author of the graffiti!
ruins of a 17th century hermitage. there is some graffiti that says “free women”.
August 18, 2025 at 8:11 AM
mmendesgalvao.bsky.social
What perfect albums came out when you were 16? (1997)

(& there was more… Elliott Smith, Blur, Björk, Yo la Tengo, Macca’s Flaming Pie, SPIRITUALIZED, …etc.)

(even though mine came out 30 years later, I am happy with the ones on the quoted post!)
cover of radiohead’s “ok computer” – it’s a digital collage of sorts involving an airport and an airplane and perhaps something from a lost children ad with a humanoid pictogram. cover of the verve’s urban hymns – it’s a picture of the members seated on grass, taken with a wide-angle lens, so that the singer’s shoes appear bigger and prominent, and the image is overall distorted and stretched around the edges. cover of nick cave & the bad seeds’ “the boatman’s call” – it’s a black and white portrait of cave (but sort of duotone – that is, there is a color that slightly tints it, and in this case it looks like a greenish yellow). this is a close-up chest-height portrait, he is wearing what looks like a dark coat and a white shirt underneath. the picture is hight-contrast, so the details are flattened. cave is a white man with distinctive features and very dramatic eyes. in this picture, he is frowning somewhat and looking sideways to his right. his hair is somewhat long, or grown, and it’s floppy and black. the name of the album is written on a sort of bold poster type in an orangey red color and all lowercase, on the bottom leftish of the cover’s perimeter, against the photograph. the title’s background is completely black because it is against cave’s coat. on top of the title, there is the name of the band in smaller point, but all caps, in the same yellowish color featured in the duotone treatment of the black and white image. phew. cover of the faith no more album “album of the year”. it features a photograph of a bearded man on a train holding a flower bouquet and seemingly giving or receiving a smaller version of that bouquet to someone else (we can only see the wrist and hand of the other person reaching out upward). the train looks to be old and the picture also does look old. the man looks like sigmund freud, actually. he is wearing glasses and a hat, but he is depicted in profile, so it’s hard to know what the shape of his glasses actually is. it looks like it may be a round pair of frames, or a monocle. who knows. I may do an image search later, or just duckduckgo it. the name of the band is to the left side, in a tan color against maroon background. the name of the album is written on the opposite side, bottom of the layout, in a serif type, quite small).
July 24, 2025 at 1:13 PM
mmendesgalvao.bsky.social
to hell with false modesty: I took some amazing pictures at Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal today, but this was not one of them.
accidental shot featuring library stacks, an 80s ceiling, a table and a chair, parts of a tattooed arm wearing a silver and amethyst bracelet, hands, fingers… and it’s upside down.
July 18, 2025 at 3:42 PM
mmendesgalvao.bsky.social
mothwork selection. from “camino de perfección”, teresa de ávila. this copy printed in 1584 in portugal. #BibliotecaNacionalDePortugal #EarlyModernArchives #16thCentury #FLAD
mothwork cutout — it resembles a boomerang maybe or ox horns, or arms about to give a hug. this cutout looks like a stylized running human. and this one looks like a bird or a turtle. this one is perhaps slightly meta, and is itself arguably reminiscent of a moth. or a goat skull.
July 15, 2025 at 7:26 PM
mmendesgalvao.bsky.social
There is relatively little reception material about Bernarda Ferreira de Lacerda, and this book cites her a few times. This fact wasn’t on the digital catalog or anywhere else I’d seen, so I’m glad I took a chance. #FLAD #BibliotecaNacionalDePortugal #EarlyModernWomen #17thCentury #19thCentury
Frontispiece of a 19th century book that is an account of several visits to Buçaco National Forest in Portugal. The book is in Portuguese, written by Adrião Pereira Forjaz de Sampaio. This is a second edition and it features a citation of Bernarda Ferreira de Lacerda’s 1634 work “Soledades de Buçaco “ as an epigraph. The book depicted was printed in Coimbra in 1850. A translation of its title is “Remembrance of Buçaco, a trip to the Lousã Mountain Range.”
July 11, 2025 at 9:00 PM
mmendesgalvao.bsky.social
would anyone like to venture a guess or two? this is an inventory from 1646 written in Portuguese. this excerpt is the first thing written under “libraria”, the library section. I’m stuck in those 2 highlighted words or expressions.
picture of a page of a handwritten inventory — this section pertains to the book collection of Portuguese author Bernarda Ferreira de Lacerda. the inventory dates from 1646 and she died in 1644.
July 7, 2025 at 2:51 PM
mmendesgalvao.bsky.social
I live dangerously close to a wonderful bookstore here in lisbon – castro e silva – and have already been doing some damage to my meager budget. a few classics for good measure plus a 19th century guide to bussaco, complete with a florilegium of poems about the area. chuffed!
a table with a bookstore haul of palmeirim de inglaterra, cancioneiro popular galego, guia histórico do bussaco, la celestina, and an alfonso X anthology. the bussaco guide is very worn and old, so it’s in a plastic bag. it’s a lovely guide with valuable historical and geographical information, written in a slightly poetic and heightened prose, and it includes a selection of poems written about the place (the buçaco or bussaco forest), which was managed by the discalced carmelites and used as a “desert” for contemplation in the 17th century, until the extinction of religious orders in Portugal in the 19th century).
July 2, 2025 at 4:05 PM
mmendesgalvao.bsky.social
it’s not the tagus, but I’ve come to treasure this little slice of the outside world that I get when I’m working at the table/desk in my lisbon temporary home.
view of roofs and the sky framed by window panes. there is an antenna of sorts on top of the more distant roof that is shaped like an arrow and points to the right — very on the nose. there is a tree right outside the window (well, it’s behind an unseen little balcony). the closest roof behind the tree is metal, then there is a slanted eave, an industrial-looking one with a round shuttered opening that is not devoid of charm. behind it there’s an old roof with a bay window without panes through which the other side can be seen, presumably because there is another window aligned to it (that’s what it looks like from here). on top of that roof there are metal shapes jutting out… some kind of iron work thing. they look like spearheads with crosses on top. behind it is an unfortunately bland modern building painted eggshell white, but it’s redeemed by the motivational antenna.
June 26, 2025 at 1:12 PM
mmendesgalvao.bsky.social
mediations
a copy of soledades de buçaco, a 1634 book written by bernarda ferreira de lacerda, rests open on an acrylic book stand, but the blank verso showing is gently held down by my left hand (a white middle aged hand wearing rings on three fingers). the dedication is seen on the recto, with a centered subject line (“To the Discalced Carmelite nuns of the Monastery of Santo Alberto de Lisboa.” – but in Portuguese). The text of the dedication starts with an ornate initial and is set in italic serifed type. The pages have mothwork. There is a formica tabletop underneath (it mimics woodgrain in medium brown shades). A close-up of the verso of the dedication, where there is the expression “bosquejos mal formados” – ill-formed sketches – and “bosquejo” stands in polysemy with “bosque” – grove, woods. The author is using the humility trope to refer to her work as a rough sketch of an original subject that is to be presumed much richer (in this case, it’s a natural area – Buçaco, in Central Portugal). A present-day necklace made of cheap metal (aspiring to be gold-plated one day) featuring the expression “bosquejos mal formados” – a facsimile from the book – on the pendant, which is a horizontal rectangle. I indulgently edited a picture of the book and sent that to the people who manufactured the pendant, to make sure it was so. The little things we do and make to populate our slices of life…
June 25, 2025 at 5:40 PM
mmendesgalvao.bsky.social
I’m a member of the slow poetry club, but I do publish sometimes. glad to have 2 poems in this excellent são paulo journal — w/ poets from diff. parts of brazil & from abroad. amazing company! this issue’s theme is “lies” and I have 1 shorty and 1 longy. the long one is called CARMINA PATRÂNIA. 😏
screenshot of instagram post promoting the party for the new issue of canarana, a brazilian poetry journal. it includes the names of the poets/artists features in this issue: amapola, ana persona, anderson santos, ayelén medail, breno fernandes, camila de moura, daniel lago monteiro, daniela giménez, dario vargas, diego sanchez, dexpierte, irana gaia, jp dourado, josé francisco hillal botelho, liu, luis villaverde, lulina, maíra mendes galvão, marcel schwob, maria carolina gonçalves, mark twain, milton mastabi, nawal el-saadawi, paulo raviere, peu, puro veneno, santiago soto.
June 24, 2025 at 6:36 PM
mmendesgalvao.bsky.social
I am in love. #BibliotecaNacionalDePortugal
I can barely describe this right now, but it’s a foldout inside an 18th Century Portuguese manuscript which is a compilation of poems that was put together by a group of people using funny pseudonyms (all of them were anagrams). anyway, this foldout is to be examined later — it’s a symmetrical diagram containing words, letters, graphics. I want to spend more time with it, although it has nothing to do with my research (it was a dead end in that path but opens up an incredible side quest… for one day in the future). this is another diagram from the same manuscript (see alt text for the other image) and it’s circular — the wheel has different inscriptions in the external circumference and internal ones, an A in the middle, and radius- laid inscriptions in different quadrants/angles.
June 23, 2025 at 1:19 PM
mmendesgalvao.bsky.social
the fourth copy of Soledades de Buçaco I’ve examined (what an embarrassment of riches!) was not really available, and it’s probably because some of the pages are either being torn apart or held together by encroaching shadows. the words on the other side here breach the caliginous fog, ghosts alit.
a copy of Soledades de Buçaco, a 17th-Century book by Bernarda Ferreira de Lacerda, open on folio 12, showing wear and possible water damage, and rusty stains all over.
June 20, 2025 at 12:59 PM
mmendesgalvao.bsky.social
view from the beautiful gardens at #FLAD — Fundação Luso-Americana pra o Desenvolvimento, celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. it was such a nice reception that I forgot to take pictures of the beautiful architecture and landscaping with its flowers and rills and different vantage points.
June 17, 2025 at 7:26 PM
mmendesgalvao.bsky.social
the tranquil inscrutability of his visage: when one reads these strange pages of one long gone one feels that one is at one with one who once…
james joyce playing the guitar (or posing with one) a very simple representation of james joyce made by me — only glasses and a bow tie
June 16, 2025 at 10:13 PM
mmendesgalvao.bsky.social
three flavors.
three copies of Soledades de Buçaco, seen side by side, the view opposite to the spine (that is, the edges of folios).
June 12, 2025 at 4:14 PM
mmendesgalvao.bsky.social
earlier today, somewhere in lisbon, a brazilian tried to mcgyver herself some percolator coffee.
a water bottle was used because of the diameter of its opening. a paper cup that was stashed in the rental was perforated with a knife and fitted to the bottle opening. a paper filter for the coffee was jammed into the small paper cup. the paper filter holds the still dry coffee grounds. if you’re reading this, I’ll come clean: I forgot to account for the buckling of the “walls” of paper filter that weren’t completely inside the paper cup. and buckle they did, on one side, which I promptly propped, and successfully finished making my mediocre coffee. I will go to a brazilian grocery store today to get a proper percolator, though. I shall not settle for pods! (that’s what the rental had)
June 12, 2025 at 10:10 AM
mmendesgalvao.bsky.social
where do the pages fall open when you prop a book lightly? this precious copy of Soledades de Buçaco at the National Library of Portugal has a “desire part” on romance X — a poetic rendering of discalced carmelite monastery life. the pages are also more translucent. #FLAD #BNP #FLADBNPfellowship
a picture of me holding an octavo from the 17th century — soledades de buçaco by bernarda ferreira de lacerda — with the spine cradled by the palm of my hand while my fingers lightly catch the leaning covers and pages to reveal roughly where the book “wants” to open.
June 12, 2025 at 9:41 AM
mmendesgalvao.bsky.social
I’m calling these “mothwork cutouts”
edges of a 1634 book — soledades de buçaco by bernarda ferreira de lacerda — with moth-eaten parts making up an interesting free broderie-like outline.
June 11, 2025 at 1:53 PM
mmendesgalvao.bsky.social
an awkwardly graceful translation I worked on today to celebrate june 10, dia de camões, dia de portugal.
The image is a screenshot of my ever provisional translation of the following Camões sonnet: Transforma-se o amador na cousa amada, Por virtude do muito imaginar; Não tenho logo mais que desejar, Pois em mim tenho a parte desejada. Se nela está minha alma transformada, Que mais deseja o corpo de alcançar? Em si sómente pode descansar, Pois consigo tal alma está liada. Mas esta linda e pura semideia, Que, como o acidente em seu sujeito, Assim co'a alma minha se conforma, Está no pensamento como ideia; [E] o vivo e puro amor de que sou feito, Como matéria simples busca a forma. [this is the translation by me:] The lover becomes the thing beloved, By an imagination set on fire; I have nothing else ever to desire, When the part desired is enclosed. If within her is my soul transformed, What need would the body possess? Within her only can it find recess, As with itself is the soul envelop’ d. But this lovely and pure half-idea, Which, as the accident in its subject, Therefore conforms itself with my soul, It dwells in my thoughts as an idea; The living, pure love, however perfect, Simple matter of which I’m made, seeks form.
June 10, 2025 at 10:48 PM