Poems That Help Me Feel Alive

By Leide Moreira

This is a work of love.

Using only the movement of her eyeballs allied with aides or family members yielding a Visual Chart, Leide Moreira constructs remarkable and moving poems, introducing us to a universe full of contagious hope and emotion-filled reflections on life.

This experience is an invitation to partake in life and that which is most humane in all of us.
60 poems written solely through the use of the eyeball and the help of a Visual Chart. Twenty of them have already been previously published in Leide Moreira's first book LETTERS OF MY EMOTION, from 2006. The remaining – 40 as yet unpublished poems – represent the author's production between the years of 2007 and 2008.

The printed version of POEMS THAT HELP ME FEEL ALIVE was released in November 2008 at the Jornal Folha de São Paulo Auditorium with a public reading performed by actresses Fernanda D'Umbra and Christiane Couto, as well as the presence of the author herself who arrived on a gurney transported by an ICU ambulance.

This digital version is exactly the same as the printed version.
Delve into this universe and discover what it is that makes Leide feel alive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 7, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483507118

Leide Moreira

Leide Moreira is a very special poet who writes remarkable verses with the movement of her eyes coupled with a Visual Chart and the help of nurses. As a consequence of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, a degenerative disease of the neuromuscular system, Leide lost all body movement except for that of her eyeballs. Completely paralyzed, unable to talk, fed through a gastrostomy tube and breathing with the aid of an artificial lung, the use of the Visual Chart was found to be the only way in which she could communicate with others. Adapting her possibilities of expression to the use of this form of communication, Leide began to produce moving poems and discovered a singular and pioneering means of participating, practicing her citizenship, of contributing to society and social inclusion through her work. Building her poems letter by letter, she has already written three book: Letras da Minha Emoção (Letters of My Emotion), Poesias Para Me Sentir Viva (Poems That Help Me Feel Alive) and Não Espere De Mim Apenas Poesias (Don't Expect Just Poetry From Me). Her work has caused a considerable amount of social repercussion, with awards, newsreels, magazine and newspaper articles and tributes as well as many of her poems being set to music by composers such as Nuno Mindelis, Elder Costa and Rafael Toledo. Leide is a lawyer, mother of three, grandmother with two grandchildren who loves and holds dear her quality of life.

Book preview

Index

Front Page

Copyright Page

Introduction

Presentation, by Luciano Pires

Ample Production, by Mara Gabrilli

Biography

Communication

Dedication

60 Years

Photograph album

Happiness

Loving is worthwhile

My window

Love

Love is a flower

Hail Mary

Hummingbird

Rag doll

Little Red Riding Hood

Fairy city

Day by day

Dilemma

E-mail

Fantasy

Philosophy

Gossip

Winter

John and Mary

Moon

Life’s road

My heart

My garden

My time

My days

My house

My moon

My living room

My week

My life

Christmas 2007

Moonlit sky

Prayer

Autumn and winter

The rover

Sins

Presents

Spring

First love

Searching

Proposal

Who you are

Who I am

Robot

Sabrina

Fruit salad

Saint John

Yearning

If

To be or not to be

Dream

Dream II

I Love you I Love you

Gloom

Paths of life

Your absence

Summer

Traveler

Sixty years

Acknowledgment

Author’s contacts

Poems that help me feel alive

1st edition - 2013

Leide Moreira

Copyright Page

Poems – Leide Moreira

My house, co-authored by Vânia de Castro and Lélia Quereza Crozara

My living room and Autumn and Winter, co-authored by Vânia de Castro

Executive producer – Leide Jacob

Drawings – Gabriel Moreira Jacob

Translation – Charles Holmquist

English revision – Marina R. S. Andréa

Produced by – Luciano Pires / Mara Gabrilli

Photo – Vania Toledo

Editorial Coordination – Alpe Schneider

Graphic Project – Denize de Moura Velloso

Support – ABrELA - Associação Brasileira de Esclerose Lateral Amiotrófica

http://www.abrela.org.br/

© Copyright – 2013 – Leide Moreira

www.leidemoreira.com.br

All rights reserved. Any and all reproduction of this edition by any means or forms, be it electronic, mechanical, facsimile, recorded or any other means of reproduction which comes into existence in the future, is prohibited without the express permission of