Cabra

John Walker is a professor of Spanish at Queen’s University.

Conquered and colonized by the Portuguese navigators in the 15th
century, Brazil evolved differently from the colonies of Spanish
America. The difference was attributable not only to language, but to
the more relaxed attitude among the Portuguese to different races,
especially the black slaves brought over from Africa.

Cabra is not meant to be a historical guide, but a poetic rendering of
the myths at work in the language of representation. The “poems”
consist of prose fragments drawn from miscellaneous documents such as
ordinances and letters to and from the monarch; accounts of the
conquistadors’ travels; descriptions of Rio de Janeiro, Salvador,
Minas Gerais, Rio Negro, and other places; comments on slavery,
religion, taxation, war, exotic animals, lotteries, convents, large
estates, slave quarters, whippings, and the other events and
characteristics associated with Brazil.

Cabra is not a simple volume of rhyming verse. It challenges readers to
ponder Samuels’s views on Brazil as a creation of the imagination that
helps us to discover ourselves.