A poética da singularidade, da língua e da nação nos poemas de Vicente Paulino

This article analyzes singularity in the poetry of Vicente Paulino, focusing on four poems from the collection Leituras do mundo e da natureza: Poemas (2018): “Desejo do poeta,” “Natureza,” “Língua Portuguesa como um mar de culturas,” and “Unidade nacional recusada.” The study understands singularity as a configuration produced through relations among different elements, drawing primarily on Gilles Deleuze’s theoretical perspective. The analysis also engages with studies on culture, ritual, memory, territory, language, and nation-building in Timor-Leste, particularly Sousa (2022) and Queiroga and Paulino (2017). Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative and interpretive reading of the poems, considering poetic language as a space for the elaboration of cultural and historical experiences. The findings demonstrate that the singularity of Vicente Paulino’s poetry cannot be reduced to the representation of a fixed Timorese identity; rather, it emerges from the articulation of ritual, orality, nature, territory, language, memory, and collectivity. The poems therefore produce different forms of experience and belonging in which cultural and historical elements are continually re-signified through poetic language. The study concludes that singularity provides a productive category for understanding Timorese poetry beyond an essentialist perspective on identity, highlighting literature as a space of memory, creation, and the elaboration of national experience.