Porto

According to Funkhouser’s reading of Barbosa’s poem “Porto” (1977), “Porto, a city built on steep granite cliffs on the coast of Portugal, is the inspiration for the language presented and rearranged by the author for poetic effect. The output appears as a block of text of capitalized letters, and as such it has a strong visual quality. Barbosa’s program, while certainly cyclical (…) enables 40,320 permutations. (…) The addition of prepositions adds three times as many configurations and prevents the poem from reflecting a slot apparatus.” (2007: 40). “(…) the overall effect that is achieved by Barbosa’s program is that endless different phrases are built that transmit different dimensions of the same sentiment.” (41) Funkhouser considers that there is a “sense of the passage of time (…) [and] other cultural aspects of the city and its people may be read into the lines, some of which nearly defy interpretation.” (41)