Lupe Cotrim

Lupe Cotrim died, at the age of 36, as a result of cancer. Since 2007, the Institute of Brazilian Studies (Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros - IEB) has been the depository of the poet-professor's collection.

In 1983, the 50th anniversary year of Lupe Cotrim's birth, Renata Pallottini, a poet and also her friend, dedicated a poem to her:

In partnership with José Arthur Giannotti, she also translated the essay Sciences humaines et philosophie by the French philosopher and critic Lucien Goldmann. After Lupe Cotrim's death, two more of her works were published: Obra Consentida (1973), composed of a selection of poems from her first five books, and the anthology Encontro (1984), organized by her son Marco Giannotti and with a critical review by the teacher and poet Cacaso.

At the same university, she started her doctorate in Aesthetics, under the guidance of Gilda de Mello e Souza, with research on the poetics of the French writer Francis Ponge, however, as a result of her premature death - in 1970 due to cancer - she did not finish it.

Poemas ao Outro, published in 1970 by the State Council of Culture, with a preface by the writer André Carneiro, evidences social concern, resonating an ethical demand present in the Brazilian culture of the 1950s-1960s. The work received the Jabuti Award, the Governador do Estado Award, and the poetry award from the Cultural Foundation of the Federal Distric.

Her remarkable performance facing the challenges of the newly created USP unit and, at the same time, the adverse political conjuncture the country was going through mobilized the students to honor her, naming, in 1970, the school's academic center Centro Acadêmico Lupe Cotrim (CALC).

In 1968, Lupe Cotrim was invited by Professor Julio Garcia Morejón, director of the then School of Cultural Communications (Escola de Comunicações Culturais), later renamed the School of Communications and Arts (Escola de Comunicações e Artes), to join the founding professors of this School. She assumed the chair of Aesthetics in the Department of Historical and Philosophical Studies (Departamento de Estudos Históricos e Filosóficos), later named Department of Communications and Arts (Departamento de Comunicações e Artes).

At the age of 30, with four published books and the fifth on its way, Lupe Cotrim took the exams to graduate in Philosophy at the College of Philosophy, Sciences and Literature of the University of São Paulo (Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras - FFCL/USP). She entered the course in 1963 and graduated in 1966. Lupe Cotrim sought in Philosophy conditions to reflect on language, rethink the effusion of the lyrical self in her writing, and better understand the world. In this period, based on works by Carlos Drummond de Andrade, João Cabral de Melo Neto, and Francis Ponge, she discovered possibilities of a certain kind of "phenomenological poetry."

Between 1961 and 1963, she presented, together with journalist Joaquim Pinto Nazário, the TV program A Semana Passada a Limpo, in which they discussed the week's events in the fields of politics, literature, and arts. Previously she produced and presented, together with writer Helena Silveira, the program Mulher, Confidencialmente, both aired on São Paulo television channels. Lupe Cotrim worked at the Caixa Econômica Federal between 1963 and 1967, at the invitation of Joaquim Pinto Nazário, then Vice-President of the bank. She also worked as an actress, making a brief appearance in A Morte da Strip-Teaser (1969), the first short film by director Eduardo Leone, then her student.

Her debut book, Monólogos do Afeto (1956), with illustrations by Darcy Penteado, was well received by the critics and considered one of the main poetry releases of the year. During this period, Lupe Cotrim traveled to Rio de Janeiro to promote her work and met the writer Carlos Drummond de Andrade, with whom she cultivated dialogue and exchanged letters. From 1956 until 1970, she released six more works, among them, Entre a Flor e o Tempo: poesia (1961) which brought a book flap text written by journalist and writer Cassiano Ricardo, presenting the work as a "fascinating lyrical adventure".

She published seven books of lyric poetry between the years 1956 and 1970 and had two works published posthumously, they are:

She completed her secondary education at Des Oiseaux School and graduated, in 1952, in Library Science and Culture at the Sedes Sapientiae Institute in São Paulo. Still in the 1950s, she studied literature, languages, arts, and lyric singing.

Initially, her work was marked by the formalist subjectivism and attachment to the sublime of the 1945s poets, however, she developed her own independent path transitioning from confessional and intimate lyricism to a social criticism marked poetry, in which an elliptical and anti-oratorical language emerges.

Lupe Cotrim or Lupe Cotrim Garaude (baptismal name: Maria José Cotrim Garaude) (São Paulo, March 16, 1933 - Campos do Jordão, February 18, 1970) was a Brazilian poet and university professor.

Maria José Cotrim Garaude is the daughter of Maria de Lourdes Lins Cotrim and doctor Pedro Garaude. Born on March 16, 1933, in the city of São Paulo, she was nicknamed Lupe from childhood, a reference to the first syllables of her parents' prenames. Lupe Cotrim moved with her family to Araçatuba and spent her childhood there. After her parents' separation, she and her mother moved to the city of Rio de Janeiro, where she studied at Bennett School. In 1949, she moved back to São Paulo to be closer to her father and integrate into the city's cultural environment.