The polyphonic world poem Gal xias (1984) by Brazilian poet Haroldo de Campos has, to date, mainly been discussed in the broader context of concrete poetry and the Latin American neo-baroque. In this book, Jasmin Wrobel offers a completely new reading of the work as a poetic testimony to a century of catastrophes: references to traumatic historical events are embedded as 'stumbling blocks' in the textual architecture, guiding the reader towards a 'Poetics of Stumbling'.