Cora Coralina’s bust by Aucione Torres Agostinho was dedicated in 1989 in a small park that bears her name in the city where she raised her six children. The plaque on the pedestal reads a quote from her poem Meu Epitafio: “Não morre aquele que deixou na terra a melodia de seu cântico na música de seus versos.” Born Ana Lins dos Guimarães Peixoto in the small town of Goiás in 1889, she chose her pen name Cora Coralina, meaning “red heart,” at age 14 when she began writing poetry. Though she recognized her poetic calling from a young age, Cora deferred her creative ambitions at 21 to marry, move to São Paulo, and raise her six children while working as a baker and confectioner. It was not until she was a widow in her late 60s that Cora returned to her family home in Goiás to begin a new life solely devoted to poetry, supporting herself by selling baked goods. Her simple yet profoundly lyrical debut poetry collection ‘Poemas dos Becos de Goiás e Estórias Mais’ was published in 1965 when she was 75 years old. Drawing inspiration from ordinary people, the cultural mix, and the harsh beauty of Brazil, Cora’s verse elevated the everyday through vivid snapshots of life’s struggles, joys, and hard-won wisdom filtered through a feminist lens. Her unique authenticity and skill at rendering the human experience into resonant yet accessible free poetry transcended technical flaws, earning her popularity and admiration for Brazil’s greatest poets, including Carlos Drummond de Andrade. Until she died in 1985 at age 95, Cora remained devoted to her poetry, chronicling life’s simplicities and profundities through an empathetic, feminist, and quintessentially Brazilian lens. Read more...

Carved into a side of a hill in the Botanical-Artistic Park is a sculpture of larger-than-life red vulva, designed by the Brazilian visual artist Juliana Notari, who named it Diva. Notari designed this statue when she was a resident of the Art Power Plant, a culture center on the land where the Santa Terezinha sugarcane mill operated 1940-1990. The deserted mill, the history of slavery, and the conflict between the indigenous people and colonialism created scars and wounds in the land. She decided to showcase this wound in her art and raise the awareness of “the problematization of gender from a female perspective.” It took almost 11 months and more than 20 people to create the statue, carve it into the hill, connect it with nature and into the earth. After it was ready on 2020 New Year’s Eve, it immediately sparked controversy between conservatives who hated it and liberals who adored and embraced it. In a coincidence, it was a day after the Brazilian President, Jair Bolsonaro, vowed that he would never legalize abortion in Brazil. Notari is one of the few female artists showcasing her work in the park. Read more...