Ancestrality, motherhood, and transmission in three poems by Cristiane Sobral

Abstract

The paper aims analyzes the poems “Tupi-Nagô” and “Canto para Mãe África,” from the collection Terra Negra (2017), and “Útero da terra,” from Só por hoje vou deixar meu cabelo em paz (2022), all written by the Black Brazilian poet Cristiane Sobral. It aims to highlight how her Black and feminine lyricism articulates themes such as ancestry, motherhood, and transmission. From a theoretical-critical perspective that brings together diverse frameworks, the study investigates how Sobral’s poetry constitutes a space of affective creation and symbolic resistance. In her lyric, motherhood is conceived beyond its biological dimension, functioning as a metaphor for ancestral continuity and the creative power of the Black female body. Through archetypal images—such as the ancestral mother, the warrior, the midwife, and the goddess—the poet constructs a lyrical subjectivity in constant transit between the personal and the collective, the present and the ancestral. The analysis also emphasizes metaphorical density, rhythm, and orality as poetic and formal features of Sobral’s style, reaffirming her political and aesthetic commitment. Although limited to a small selection of poems, the interpretive analyses signal how Sobral enacts a project of symbolic decolonization and reinvention of contemporary Afro-Brazilian literature through a poetry that is both transgressive and affectively powerful.