The Conditioned, Raimundo Arruda Sobrinho

Raimundo Arruda Sobrinho was homeless in São Paulo, Brazil, for nearly 35 years, and has become locally known to sit in the same spot and write every day. In April 2011, he befriended a young woman named Shalla Monteiro. Impressed with his poetry she decided to help him with his dream of publishing a book,

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I always thought of the condition of the homeless, the invisible, yet the most visible, but ignored, I always believed they are our prophets, to take the time to reach out to them, how much they can teach us?

A wonderful story, thanks for posting> I have scoured the interwebz to find a sample of his work and can't find any. Glad they are putting a book together for him and it appears many area anxious to see his poetry. If someone finds some, please post it and translate it. That many years of quiet reflection and observation may serve as deep conducive waters for some profound realizations. Or, the writings could be simple and quaint? I don't know, but am really curious what was in this gentleman's head.
Glad to see his transition and I bet he is deeply grateful to this lady and to the fact that his thoughts will be read by many. His brother finding out about this is a great aspect of this story too.

Peace,
spec

reply to post by speculativeoptimist


I looked too and didn't find anything, thanks tor posting

reply to post by Stormdancer777


Lovely, thanks for posting this history of hope and perseverance.

I will look forward to his book as I can read Portuguese.

reply to post by speculativeoptimist


Hello,

His facebook page has a lot of small texts written by Raimundo in Portuguese, you can find the page here, most people won't understand what's written but at least there's a lot of pictures to see. Two things called my attention, one is an article I found where he says he wanted to go back to his old life on the streets if he had the opportunity, the other is her lovely niece saying that he helps with her homework and that he's very clever - you can see a picture of him and her niece and his nephew in the facebook link I provided above.

This is a small text of him published on his facebook, translation follows (I guess my translation doesn't have the same poetic style as the original of course):


O
Ideal, além de ser o maior peso
que o homem pode carregar,
é a desgraça do Idealista.
(Raimundo Arruda Sobrinho)


The Ideal, besides being the largest weight
that man can carry,
is the misfortune of the Idealist.


Cheers,