A linguistic-literary analysis of the poem “Terra”, by Décio Pignatari

This article aims to analyze Décio Pignatari’s poem “Terra” (1956) in order to demonstrate how the visual and verbal materiality of Concrete Poetry reconfigures the relationship between form and meaning. The study seeks to show the poem’s paradigmatic status as a “poem-object” that breaks with discursive linearity. The theoretical framework draws on the Theory of Concrete Poetry by Campos and Pignatari (1975), Bosi’s analytic typology (1994), and dialogues with Guimarães’s intersemiotic reading (2007). The methodology is qualitative, exploratory, and descriptive. The corpus analysis, Pignatari’s “Terra”, was conducted through a bibliographic survey and a meticulous description of its verbo-visual elements, examining the semantic, syntactic, lexical, morphological, phonetic, and topographic levels as proposed by Bosi (1994). Procedures included articulating linguistic micro-processes (morphemes, alliterations) with macro-organization (graphic layout, geometric figures). The results indicate that “Terra” exemplifies the central features of the concretist movement. The analysis confirms the poem’s classification within the organic phase of Concrete Poetry due to its geometric irregularity and the spatial distribution of words. Segmenting the word terra into morphemes such as ter and erra generates semantic networks of possession and error, reinforced by the graphic arrangement and sonic effects such as alliteration. The investigation concludes that the poem objectifies language and surpasses the form–content dichotomy, confirming concretist premises through its non-linear, verbo-visual structure.