It was the injustices and social inequalities he encountered since childhood that led him to study economics. ‘I had friends who went to school barefoot and whose only meal of the day was the warm bread roll with milk they were given there, and I wanted to understand how such an imbalance was possible in a European country.’ But, he says, he was “deeply naive” and quickly grew tired of university because “what we learned was not how to dismantle that.” He dropped out of university and, at around the age of 22, took on “a very tough job” at the Port of Leixões, where he was an official measurer of timber coming from the Portuguese colonies. He worked in the timber trade for more than two decades. ‘I learned as I went along, and I was good at what I did; in the final stage of my career in the forestry sector, I ended up owning my own companies, but then I got fed up.’ In 2001, the year Porto was European Capital of Culture, he launched the ‘Quintas de Leitura’, structured around the work of a poet, and then, from 2002 onwards, he continued these sessions as a programmer at the Campo Alegre Theatre.

His interest in poetry began in the 1980s. He was ‘strongly influenced by the glorious nights’ of Poetry Mondays at Pinguim, created by Joaquim Castro Caldas, who ‘was a man far ahead of his time.’ He remembers, even before that, going with Germana Tânger and his parents to see recitals ‘where people recited poetry extraordinarily well, with precision, but I found it boring.’ And so he assures that, ‘even at the age of 18 or 19, he was already thinking about how to give a fun and also much deeper dimension’ to recitals.

“Desacralising poetry” and making it accessible to everyone is the main objective of this poetic cycle. “Poets are not saints. Poetry must be mixed, it must cross other fields, other disciplines.” Gesta is therefore an advocate of transdisciplinarity, of crossing various forms of artistic expression to add something to the poem.

“I remember a conversation I had with a choreographer to whom I gave a poem by Herberto Helder about Mother; she read it and said it was ‘very violent’. ‘I felt like throwing myself on the floor and breaking myself’, she said. I asked her if she wanted the challenge of interpreting it, and she [presented], at Campo Alegre, something wonderful, visceral, poetic and violent, around the figure of the mother.” — The path was clear. If poetry and music had already crossed paths, Gesta felt that dance and performance, among other things, were still missing. ‘To this day, with the help of Julieta Guimarães, from Erva Daninha, we have made countless crossovers with the new circus, and then completely crazy things.’

In these shows, where words are incendiary material, Gesta also likes to leave room for absurdity and surprise. Incidentally, he recalls the time when radio presenter Fernando Alvim took part in Quintas de Leitura and wanted to come on stage ‘in a different, disconcerting way’. "I thought and thought and said that I thought it would be funny if he arrived on stage in an ambulance; the gates outside would open, and then two stretcher bearers would bring him in, but they wouldn't treat him well; they would treat him badly and throw him off the stretcher. He really liked the idea, and that's how it went." The programmer also recalls some outdoor sessions, such as the one that took place in 2018 at Pérola Negra, a former striptease bar, now a dance club, which featured a stripper. ‘The poems were a little more risqué and the whole thing was a little more risqué, but people loved it,’ he laughs.

New voices in Portuguese poetry and music

Gesta likes to discover ‘new talents’ in poetry, which she then promotes on Thursdays: ‘A big name that is about to break through is Francisca Bartilotti,’ she says, also pointing to Francisca Camelo, Filipa Leal, Cláudia R. Sampaio, Raquel Nobre Guerra and Maria Lis as authors who deserve to be read. ‘In Portuguese poetry at the moment, and generally speaking, the female voice is much stronger than the male voice.’

The programmer also recalls the presence of Adília Lopes at one of the first sessions of Quintas de Leitura in 2002, when almost no one was reading her yet. He says that to convince her to participate, he enlisted the help of Valter Hugo Mãe, who published her at Quasi Edições. “I always tell the story of when I met her; she was presenting her book at FNAC; she was a very modestly dressed lady with a small bag, and people looked at her a little suspiciously. At one point, Adília told Valter that she had some leaflets to distribute and asked for permission to do so. She got up and started handing them out (she turned out to be the Baby Jesus of Prague!). She stopped in front of me and said: you know, I have a friend to whom God revealed himself. I was taken aback and just replied: give her my regards. And a friend I was with immediately asked me if I had sent my regards to God.”

The search for new talent also extends to music. It's a kind of scouting, like in football. ‘I often go to these bars in Lisbon and Porto to see things.’ As an example, he points to Bia Maria, but also names such as Dead Combo, Samuel Úria, B Fachada and A Garota Não, who were little known when they participated in Quintas de Leitura. ‘I remember, in the middle of the pandemic, a wonderful concert that A Garota Não gave in the auditorium of the Pavilhão Rosa Mota, with an audience of 400 people (because of social distancing, they were seated in chairs, yes, chairs, no) and almost no one knew them at the time.’

The addiction to Porto

‘It has always been my city.’ Gesta does not skimp on the use of possessive pronouns when referring to Porto. "When I worked in wood, I often went out, but, as Manuel António Pina said, when the plane was flying over the bridge and arriving in Porto, it was the greatest thrill. Porto, with its 10 days of continuous rain and that Sebastianist fog, is a fascinating city."

In this respect, he reads us the poem “Ponte da Arrábida” by Jorge Sousa Braga: When you come from the south, as you reach the bridge, you slow down a little so you can look at the escarpment and the river. No other city offers itself like this to those who arrive, like a bitch permanently in heat.

He continues: ‘As Sousa Braga wrote, this city is not a city, it is an addiction. [José Gomes Ferreira] wrote that Porto is the city where the word freedom is least secret. It is the city of freedom, of resistance. It has the power to lull us and bewitch us. It carries us away without us even noticing.’

We asked him to draw us an emotional map of the city. He lists some of his favourite places, even those that are now only open in his memory. ‘I just needed to live in Aniki Bobó and Meia Cave; that dimension of Ribeira has disappeared,’ he regrets, but he rejoices that Pinguim, run by Rui Spranger, continues to be ‘an important space’ for reading and disseminating poetry. “The kids bring poetry and can read freely.” Passos Manuel (“I like going there because of my friendship with Becas”), Maus Hábitos and Lusitano are other favourite places. “When I’m in a good mood, I go to Lusitano; it’s the place I find most amusing, the one I like best. And many of the drag shows I bring to Quintas de Leitura are suggestions from Mário [Carvalho]. I really enjoy Lusitano.”