Manuel María Fernández Teixeiro


Manuel María Fernández Teixeiro, better known as Manuel María, was a Spanish poet and academic who wrote in the Galician language. He was notable for his combative character and his political commitment. His poetry touched on themes of love, art, his own political commitment, drawing attention to wrongs, ethnography, physics, history, immateriality, mythology, the animal world, poetic expression, the passing of time, religion, society, language, agricultural labour, urbanism, and geography. The Day of Galician Literature was devoted to him in 2016.

Biography

Manuel María was the son of two well-to-do farmers, Antonio Fernández Núñez, who was the mayor of Outeiro de Rei, and Pastora Teixeiro Casanova. He went to primary school in his small village of Rábade. In 1942 he moved to Lugo to carry out his secondary studies at the Marist Brothers school. In Lugo, at the age of 20, he began his precocious literary career participating in a conference circuit called "Jóvenes valores lucenses." This helped him get in touch with members of a group that met at the Méndez Núñez cafeteria: Luís Pimentel, Ánxel Fole, Juan Rof Codina, Aquilino Iglesia Alvariño, and others. This was his introduction to Galicianism and the Galician literary world. His friendship with Uxío Novoneyra also dates from this period.
In 1950 he published his first collection of poems, Muiñeiro de brétemas, which inaugurated the so-called "Escola da Tebra". His disappointment after failing the entrance exams to the University of Santiago inspired his second collection of poems, Morrendo a cada intre. He did his military service in Santiago de Compostela and there he attended a gathering at Café Español, where he became a great friend of Carlos Maside. He then returned to Lugo, where he studied to become an attorney. In 1954 he won a prize at the Xogos Florais in Ourense. In 1958 he became a court attorney in Monforte de Lemos, where he remained most of the rest of his life. To that city he dedicated a collection of poems, Cancioneiro de Monforte de Lemos. The following year he married Saleta Goi García in Lugo.
Although poetry was his preferred medium, Manuel María also attempted essays, narratives and plays. He moved away from a pessimistic existentialist position towards social and political commitment. In the troubled period of the 1960s and 1970s, he took part in the undercover reorganisation of the Galician nationalist political parties; he also worked with various organisations devoted to restoring Galician culture, arranging conferences and reciting poems. He managed the Xistral publishing house and together with its founder he ran the bookshop of the same name. He was made a corresponding member of the Royal Galician Academy in 1970, but renounced his membership in a public letter that appeared in the Galician newspapers in 1975.
A grass-root militant of the Galician People's Union and of the Frente Cultural of the Galician National-Popular Assembly, he was elected councillor in Monforte in 1979 for the Galician National-Popular Bloc. He resigned in 1985, and moved to A Coruña to fully devote himself to literary and cultural activities. His column, Walking on Earth, appeared in the newspaper Our Earth. One of the last campaigns in which he took part was in response to the Prestige oil spill disaster, under the names of Burla Negra and the Plataforma Nunca Máis.
In 1997 he was appointed partner of honour of the Galician Writers Association. He was re-admitted to the Royal Galician Academy in February 2003, under the sponsorship of Xosé Luís Méndez Ferrín and others. respondido por Méndez Ferrín.
He died at A Coruña on 8 September 2004, and was buried in the church of Santa Isabel, Outeiro de Rei.

Honours

On 7 September 2013 his house-museum in Outeiro de Rei was opened, Casa das Hortas. On 4 July 2015, it was announced that the Royal Galician Academy would dedicate Galician Literature Day of 2016 to his memory.

Work

Works in Galician

Poetry

Muiñeiro de brétemas.Morrendo a cada intre.Advento.Terra Chá.Libro de cantigas.Documentos personaes.Libro de pregos.Mar Maior.Versos frolecidos en louvanza de Foz.Proba documental.Manuel María. Poemas ditos coa súa voz. Disco de vinilo de 45 r.p.m.Versos pra un país de minifundios.Versos pra cantar en feiras e romaxes.Remol.Canciós do lusco ao fusco.99 poemas de Manuel María.Odas nun tempo de paz e de ledicia.Aldraxe contra a xistra.Informe pra axudar a alcender unha cerilla.Laio e clamor pola Bretaña.Seis pétalos de rosa en xeito de retrato. Asinado co pseudónimo Xohán Carneiro.Cantos rodados para alleados e colonizados.Poemas ó outono.Poemas para construír unha patria.O libro das baladas.Catavento de neutrós domesticados.Brétemas do muiñeiro e poema da neboa aferrollada.Versos de trinta outonos: . Escolma de Camilo Gómez Torres.Escolma de poetas de Outeiro de Rei.Versos do lume e do vagalume.Cantigueiro do Orcellón.A luz ressuscitada.O camiño é unha nostalxia.Poemas da labarada estremecida.Oráculos para cavalinhos-do-demo.Ritual para unha tribu capital do concello.As lúcidas lúas do outono.Sonetos ao Val de Quiroga.Saturno. Edición bilíngüe galego-éuscaro.Cancioneiro de Monforte de Lemos.Homenaxe ao regato do Cepelo.Compendio de orballos e incertezas.Hinos pra celebrar ao século futuro.Panxoliñas.Antoloxía poética.Os lonxes do solpor. Poemas a Compostela.A primavera de Venus.Cantigas e cantos de Pantón.Poemas para dicirlle a dúas lagoas.O Miño, canle de luz e néboa.Antoloxía poética.Sonetos á casa de Hortas.MiniEscolma.Camiños de luz e sombra.Obra poética completa I e II .Elexías á miña vida pequeniña.Cecais hai unha luz.

Prose

Contos en cuarto crecente e outras prosas.O xornaleiro e sete testemuñas máis.Kricoi, Fanoi e Don Lobonis.Os ontes do silencio.Novena a Santa Isabel, por un devoto de Outeiro de Rei.Historias do empardecer.

Drama

Auto do taberneiro. 4 ventos.Auto do labrego. Céltiga nº 4.Auto do mariñeiro .Barriga verde.Unha vez foi o trebón.Auto trascendental do ensino tradicional.Aventuras e desventuras dunha espiña de toxo chamada Berenguela.Auto do Maio esmaiolado.Abril de lume e ferro.Auto do Castromil ou a revolución dos baúles.Unha vez foi o trebón e Farsa de Bululú.A lúa vai encoberta.Edipo. Edición de Miguel Anxo Mato.

Juvenile works

Os soños na gaiola.As rúas do vento ceibe.A tribo ten catro ríos.Unha sombra vai polo camiño; Como desapareceu a Atlántida e apareceron os lagartos.Cando o mar foi polo río.Viaxes e vagancias de M. P..As ribeiras son escuras.O bigote de Mimí.

Essays

Notas en col da poesía de Fermín Bouza-Brei.Noticia da vida e da poesía de Xosé Crecente Vega.Noticia da poesía galega de posguerra.Andando a Terra. Co pseudónimo de Manuel Hortas Vilanova.A Terra Chá: poesía e paisaxe.Galiza.

Correspondence

Correspondencia entre Manuel María e Ramón Otero Pedrayo . Edición de Xosé Manuel Sánchez Rei e Estefanía Mosquera Castro.

Collections

Sursum corda. Poesía galego-portuguesa ao Viño.Rosalia de Castro. Antologia poética. Cancioneiro rosaliano, poema A Rosalía..A nova canción galega a altura do ano 70 en Galicia ano 70. Ediciones Celta, Lugo. Canda Díaz Pardo, Ánxel Fole et al.II Festival da Poesía do Condado.III Festival da Poesía no Condado.IV Festival da Poesía no Condado.VI Festival da Poesía no Condado.VII Festival da Poesia no Condado.VIII Festival da Poesia no Condado. Escolma Poética.IX Festival da Poesia no Condado. Escolma Poética.X Festival da Poesia no Condado. Escolma Poética.12 anos na búsqueda da nosa identidade.XI Festival da Poesia no Condado.XIII Festival da Poesia no Condado.Desde mil novecentos trinta e seis: homenaxe da poesía e da plástica galega aos que loitaron pola liberdade.Construír a paz.Novo do trinque.Poetas entre a tradición e a modernidade: antoloxía. Coeditor con Anxo Gómez Sánchez.16 poemas galegos para Ernesto Che Guevara contra a súa morte .Neste silencio: Arredor de Uxío Novoneyra.Poemas e contos da muralla.Poetas e narradores nas súas voces. I.Alma de beiramar.Antoloxía consultada da poesía galega 1976-2000. Por Arturo Casas.Homenaxe poética ao trobador Xohan de Requeixo.Intifada. Ofrenda dos poetas galegos a Palestina.Negra sombra. Intervención poética contra a marea negra.23 poetas galegos cantan a don Antonio Machado.Xela Arias, quedas en nós.Cartafol poético para Alexandre Bóveda.Do máis fondo do silencio saen voces.Poemas pola memoria .Tamén navegar.

Articles in [Grial] magazine

  • "A poesía galega de Celso Emilio Ferreiro", revista Grial nº 6.
  • "As augas van caudales", revista Grial nº 9.
  • "Os alugados", revista Grial nº 14.
  • "Raimon, poeta de noso tempo", revista Grial nº 18.

Works in Spanish

Poetry

Sermón para decir en cualquier tiempo.