Editorial data

Let us briefly describe the magazine's 3 issues. The first issue of Pirâmide (February 1959) features the collaboration of Mário Cesariny (“Mensagem e Ilusão do Acontecimento Surrealista”, pp. 1-2), Pedro Oom (“Um Ontem Cão”), Raul Leal (“Psaume”, p. 10), António Maria Lisboa (“Aviso a Tempo por Causa do Tempo”, p. 12), Luiz Pacheco (“Surrealismo e Sátira”, pp. 13-14), a fragment by Mário Sá-Carneiro (1913), and a translation by Ernesto Sampaio (Artaud). The cover was designed by Marcelo de Sousa and Carlos Loures and Máximo Lisboa organized the issue. In addition to the magazine's subtitle “anthology”, the frontispiece also proclaims it a “non-periodic booklet”. The issue is presented with a five-paragraph notícia, which is unsigned but with a style reminiscent of the two young organizers.

Pirâmide's second issue (June 1959), whose subtitles remain the same, “anthology and non-periodic booklets”, adds a third name to the organizers, Sena Camacho, who will again be absent in the third issue; Marcelo de Sousa is still responsible for the design and the cover, and the frontispiece indicates the workshop where it was printed (Editora Gráfica Portuguesa, Lisbon). It features collaboration by Máximo Lisboa (“Causas do Determinismo Antropolírico” [with quotes by António Maria Lisboa, Ernesto Sampaio, and João Gaspar Simões], pp. 17-18), Herberto Helder (“Poema”, pp. 19-20), José Carlos Gonzalez, Sena Camacho, Virgílio Martinho (“A propósito do movimento 57”, pp. 25-28), Carlos Loures (“Poema-Colagem”), Saldanha da Gama, Manuel de Castro (“Poema”, p. 31) , António José Forte (“Quase 3 Discursos - Quase Veementes” pp. 32-33), Ernesto Sampaio (“Carta ao Diário Popular”, p. 33), José Sebag (“Letra para uma Música em Voga”, p. 34 ), Luiz Pacheco (“A Pirâmide & a Crítica”); as well as two visual pieces by Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso (“Farol Bretão - Estudo”) and D'Assumpção (“Génesis”). On the frontispiece, as in the first issue, an unsigned notícia presentation, this time three paragraphs long. The final page, perhaps by Mário Cesariny, shows the published volumes of the “A Antologia em 1958” collection (Mário Cesariny, António Maria, Virgílio Martinho, Luiz Pacheco, Natália Correia) and those yet to be published (O Cadáver Esquisito na sua Breve Passagem pela Cidade), preceded by “Aviso aos Distraídos”, which seems a collective poetic joke (in which the reappearance of Tempo Presente is announced and three dozen writers are advised to read it).

The third and final issue (December 1960), with the same subtitles and identical three-paragraph notícia on the frontispiece, has no indication of graphic direction (Marcelo de Sousa's name disappeared) and shows a new print workshop on the frontispiece/cover (Luiz Marques, Lisbon). If features collaboration by Máximo Lisboa (“Iconoclasia”, pp. 41-43), Edmundo de Bettencourt (p. 44 - with a six poem anthology), Alfredo Margarido (“Nota sobre os poemas surdos”, p. 45), Renato Ribeiro, Jacques-Henry Lévesque (“Alfred Jarry”, pp. 46-47; unsigned translation), Rodolfo Alonso (in Spanish, p. 47), Henrique Lima Freire, Manuel de Castro (“Notas para Poesia”, p. 49), Ángel Crespo (“Voíme Yendo”, p. 50), Llorenç Vidal (in Catalan and with Portuguese translation by Manuel de Seabra, p. 50), and Carlos Loures (“Aos Ladrões de Fogo - Poesia, Surrealismo, Controle”, pp. 51-52), which closes the issue. It has side notes, a “2.º Aviso aos Distraídos”, and a three line comment about Luiz (then Luís) Pacheco and António Maria Lisboa. The frontispiece notícia announces the publication of a fourth issue soon, which never appeared, with the collaboration of Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, Maria Rosa Colaço, Natália Correia, António José Forte, José Manuel Simões, and Isidore Ducasse.

António Cândido Franco

David Lopes