Alexandre O'Neill

[citation needed] In 1948, O'Neill was among the founders of the Lisbon Surrealist Movement, along with Mário Cesariny de Vasconcelos, José-Augusto França and others.

His salient characteristics – a disrespect of conventions, both social and literary, an attitude of permanent revolt, playfulness with language, and the use of parody and black humor – are used to form a body of incisive depictions of what is to be Portuguese and his relation with the country.

Other poems, such as Lament of the Man Who Misses Being Blind, seemed to hold religion and mysticism responsible for an obscurantism that made change difficult if not impossible.

A publicist by profession, famed for inventing some of the most ingenious advertising slogans of his time, O'Neill was unusually adept at manipulating words and using them in an efficacious manner, but he refused to put that talent at the service of a lyrically lofty, feel-good sort of poetry (see 'Simply Expressive').

He married firstly on 27 December 1957 and divorced on 15 January 1971 television and film screenwriter, editor and director Noémia Delgado.