[...] As intellectual workers, we were believers, in the first place, that ideological, religious and political conceptions were welcome, respected and even desired, but were second to beauty and truth. This group did not distinguish certain political beliefs if beauty and truth were the values cultivated. Roberto Aguiar (BEZERRA, 1997, p. 154).
Initiated as the Grupo de Jaboatão, this literary movement known as Geração 65 was created in the city of Jaboatão dos Guararapes, in Pernambuco.
Its founders and first members were the young poets Jaci Bezerra, Alberto Cunha Melo, Domingos Alexandre and José Luiz de Almeida Melo.
The name Geração 65 was assigned to the Group by the geographer and historian Tadeu Rocha, in a brief article on the Diário de Pernambuco. In the fourth edition of his book Roteiros do Recife: Olinda e Guararapes (1970), in the chapter Geografia poética do Recife, there is a reference to the “Geração de 65”, later called only Geração 65:
[...] The newest literary generation of the Northeastern metropolis – the generation of 65 – reflects in their poetry the greatness and the misery, beauty and ugliness, joys and pain of this huge tropical city [...]. (ROCHA, 1970, p. 139).
The title for the movement was used by Tadeu Rocha to name the wave of new poets, whose work was published in the pages of the Diário de Pernambuco, by the then editor of the Literary Supplement of the Recife newspaper, the poet, literary critic and professor César Leal.
One of the big supporters of the movement, that he said to be an irreversible milestone in the history of Brazilian culture (BEZERRA, 1997, p. 23), César Leal also published as offprints, in the Estudos Universitários magazine of the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, several books of members of the Geração 65, among which the highlights were: Romances, Jaci Bezerra (1967); Cancioneiro, Marcos Accioly (1968); Oração pelo poema, Alberto Cunha Melo (1969); Proclamação do verde, Ângelo Monteiro (1969); Três noites no sobrado, José Rodrigues de Paiva (1969); Parábola, Tereza Tenório de Albuquerque (1970); Armorial de um caçador de nuvens, Ângelo Monteiro (1971); O cadeado negro, Débora Brennand (1971); Lavradouro, Jaci Bezerra (1973); Memória do mar sublevado, Fernando Monteiro (1973); Passaporte, Arnaldo Tobias (2003).
Between the decades of 1960 and 1980, besides from the support of César Leal, Geração 65 counted with the Pernambuco press to promote their work, through the collaboration of journalists, writers and article writers of the Jornal do Commercio and the Diário de Pernambuco. Artists such as João Câmara and Francisco Brennand also collaborated by illustrating poems in the newspapers.
As they gained recognition, Geração 65 attracted new members. Gilberto Freyre, in an article published in the Diário de Pernambuco, proposed the enlargement of the Group. He stated that it shouldn’t be restricted only to poets, but it should also include everyone that dedicated or supported cultural production, such as writers, artists, journalists or politicians.
[...] From what is being said about the Brazilian generation – specially the one from 1945 Pernambuco – you can say that – already considering defined promises – twenty years after it, it is starting to have put a mark on the cultural life of our country – specially in Pernambuco – with the impact of a new exceptional presence. This generation being defined as exceptional is the one that a competent analyst of Brazilian matters, usually form the Northeast or from Pernambuco in particular – the geographer and historian Tadeu Rocha, from Recife, has already classified as from “65”. That is, from the year 1965. [...] it is starting to act, or to define, as a generation that can already be noticed by the affirmation of young value expression, both literary and non-literary and trans-literary. [...] More than artistic or more than literary, that’s how the Generation of 65 is starting to show itself. In it, together with literary writers [...] there are essayists, politicians, sociologists, economists [...]. (FREYRE, 1975, p. 5).
Little by little, Geração 65 started to have not only poets, but also fiction and theater writers, essayists and other collaborators.
The group was formed by Alberto Cunha Melo, Jaci Bezerra, Domingos Alexandre, José Luiz de Almeida Melo, Marcus Accioly, Tereza Tenório, Lucila Nogueira, Maria de Lourdes Hortas, Janice Japiassu, Ângelo Monteiro, José Rodrigues de Paiva, José Carlos Targino, Almir Castro Barros, Arnaldo Tobias, Fernando de Mello Freyre, Luiz Carlos Monteiro, César Leal, Cláudio Aguiar, José Mário Rodrigues, Raimundo Carrero, Paulo Bruscky, Débora Brennand, José Maria Rodrigues, Sérgio Moacir de Albuquerque, Esman Dias, Everardo Norões, Fernando Monteiro, Geraldo Falcão, Gladstone Vieira Belo, Jomar Souto, Marco Polo Guimarães, Marcos Cordeiro, Maximiano Campos, Sebastião Vila Nova, Paulo Gustavo, Roberto Aguiar, Roberto Martins, Tarcício Meira César, Severino Filgueira, Tarcísio Pereira, Sérgio Bernardo and others.
In 2008, the filmmaker Luci Alcântara released her first feature film, Geração 65 – aquela coisa toda, in which she rebuilds the trajectory of the movement, gathering testimonials of twelve members of the Group. A subject that is predominant in the documentary are the literary encounters that took place in the Savoy Bar, in the Teatro Popular do Nordeste and the bookstore Livro 7. The members of the group also used to go, until the beginning of the 70s, to the restaurants A Cabana and Torre de Londres, on Park 13 de Maio and Sertã, downtown. Starting at the 1970s, they began to gather in the bars Mangueirão, in the neighborhood of Apipucos and O Pirata in Casa Forte, located close to Fundação Joaquim Nabuco (Fundaj), a place where many of them worked.
In 1979, a period of great effervescence for Geração 65, an editorial movement was created, led by poets Alberto Cunha Melo, Jaci Bezerra and the writer Eugênia Menezes, known as Edições Pirata. Until 1985, under the Edições Pirata seal, over three hundred books from local authors and authors from other states were published.
In 1995, due to the celebration of the 30 years of Geração 65, a Seminary was organized by Jaci Bezerra at the Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, in order to remember, through testimonials of their members, the memories of everything that was created and done by the movement.
The tribute also included the exhibit Roteiro da Geração 65, that gathered documents that allowed to have an overview of the Group during three decades, and also a detailed exhibit of the activities developed by Edições Pirata.
Recife, August 15, 2013.
sources consulted
BEZERRA, Jaci (Org.). Geração 65: o livro dos trinta anos. Recife: Fundarpe, 1997.
D’ MORAIS, Marcos. O Livro & e a Geração 65. 2008. Available at: <http://interpoetica.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=703&catid=0>. Accessed: 20 jun. 2013.
FREYRE, Gilberto. A Geração de 65. Diario de Pernambuco, Recife, 1º jun. 1975. Caderno 1º, p. 5.
GERAÇÃO 65. Available: <http://www.domingocompoesia.com/p/geracao-65.html>. Accessed: 20 jun. 2013.
ROSEMBERG, André. Geração 65: um movimento literário do Recife. Continente Documento, Recife, ano 2, n. 14, p. 4-32, out. 2003.
WELLER, Fernando. Um poema contínuo. Continente, Recife, ano 8, n. 95, p. 34-35, nov. 2008.
how to quote this text
Surce: GASPAR, Lúcia. Geração 65. Pesquisa Escolar Online, Joaquim Nabuco Foundation, Recife. Available at: <http://basilio.fundaj.gov.br/pesquisaescolar>. Accessed: day month year. Exemple: 6 August 2009.