ABSTRACT
During the 1940s and 1950s, folheto verse served as a form of popular journalism for thousands throughout the Brazilian North East. They relied on it for news of local, national and international events. The best selling folhetos have been those dealing with major news items, such as the deaths of popular national figures. The suicide of President Vargas in 1954 is believed to have generated more folhetos than any other topic. As the production of popular poetry declined in Brazil in the 1980s and 1990s, it was news of national concern that dominated the folhetos that were still produced. The visits to Brazil of the Pope, in 1980 and 1991, and the deaths of President Tancredo Neves in 1985 and racing driver Ayrton Senna in 1994 stimulated dozens of new poems. By those decades, the folheto had largely lost its journalistic function, for the mass media had penetrated virtually all parts of the North East, but there was still a demand for chapbook interpretations of major events. Sensationalism is a salient feature of many of these poems.
