Cover design for Monólogo miúdo da feiura ("Small monologue of ugliness"), a book of poems by Marcela Hallack, published by Toma Aí Um Poema.

Ugliness as a lens. The book proposes ugliness as a "critical operator of perception," and the cover takes up the proposal: a woman's face with a gaping mouth, tongue out, eyes wide, painted in dirty colours — olive green, ochre, red, blue — with expressionist strokes and pen scribbles over the top. It is not a cover meant to please; it is a cover that looks back.

The city behind. The background is a city silhouette in grey on ochre, and the frame of the face is tilted, like a poster pasted askew. The title sits on the spine and the back, in loose coloured letters, each a different colour — small, broken, by hand. The author's name runs down the spine, letter by letter.

Inside, the body. The endpapers carry India-ink drawings on olive green: women's bodies, garters, ribs — the "female body, art, hunger, the leftovers" the book articulates. The open cover has the introductions on the flaps and the poem "reflexo" ("reflection") on the back.