People like Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Carlos Drummond de Andrade (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈkaɾlus dɾuˈmõ d͡ʒi ɐ̃ˈdɾad͡ʒi]) (October 31, 1902 – August 17, 1987) was a Brazilian poet and writer, considered by some as the greatest Brazilian poet of all time.

He has become something of a national cultural symbol in Brazil, where his widely influential poem "Canção Amiga" ("Friendly Song") has been featured on the 50-cruzado novo bill.

Drummond was born in Itabira, a mining village in Minas Gerais in the southeastern region of Brazil. His parents were farmers belonging to old Brazilian families of mainly Portuguese origin. He went to a school of pharmacy in Belo Horizonte, but never worked as a pharmacist after graduation, as he did not enjoy the career he chose. He worked as a civil servant for most of his life, eventually becoming director of the history for the National Historical and Artistic Heritage Service of Brazil. Though his earliest poems are formal and satirical, Drummond quickly adopted the new forms of Brazilian modernism that were evolving in the 1920s, incited by the work of Mário de Andrade (to whom he was not related). He would mingle speech fluent in elegance and derive truth about his surroundings, many times describing quotidian, normal aspects of life while achieving a fluidity of thought and speech. Drummond drifted towards communism at the start of World War II and took up the editorship of the Brazilian Communist Party's official newspaper, Tribuna Popular, but later abandoned the post due to disagreements over censorship, which Drummond staunchly opposed.