Poesia de cordel nas feiras: a memória em São Cristóvão e na Feira Central

This article offers an analysis of cordel poetry performances in the markets of São Cristóvão (Rio de Janeiro) and Campina Grande (Paraíba), drawing on a hermeneutic framework grounded in Paul Ricoeur’s (2007) dialectics of memory and forgetting, and Leda Maria Martins’ (2021) theorization of performance as embodied knowledge and temporal inscription. By conceptualizing cordel as a “text in action,” the study explores how poetic practices function as communicative acts and narrative processes, situated in the materiality of bodies, public spaces, and layered temporalities. The performances examined here are shown to construct collective memories under continual negotiation, evoking both living traditions and staged representations, thereby exposing symbolic tensions over the cultural legitimacy of cordel poetry.