Prof. Francisco Gomes de Matos (3 Sep 1933 – 5 Jul 2025): Humanist, Peace Linguist, Nonkilling Poet Laureate

It is with great sadness that we share the demise today of Francisco Gomes de Matos, our pioneer peace linguist and Nonkilling poet laureate, whose admirable path we follow to be positive, creative and dedicated to the mission of inspiring and humanizing nonkilling transformation.

This has been a great shock and an unfortunate setback to our entire Nonkilling community. Francisco’s path breaking book, Nurturing Nonkilling- A Poetic Plantation (2009) is an amazing collection of poems. Late Prof. Glenn D. Paige described “Francisco’s Nonkilling poetic call to all the arts, sciences and vocations” as a monumental work. Francisco regularly contributed poems and posters to the NKARC newsletter over the decade it appeared.

Prof Gomes de Matos’ legacy will continue to inspire, uplift, and guide people around the world to use, teach, and study language to transform lives. A great poet scholar and nonkilling light from Brazil who will continue to show us the way forward for all time to come!

Francisco Gomes de Matos, Ph.D. was an applied peace linguist from Recife, Brazil. He had degrees in Languages, Law, and Linguistics. He was Professor Emeritus at the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco where he was active in the Dom Hélder Camara Human Rights Commission. A co-founder of ABA Global Education, he was one of the pioneers in Linguistic Rights (author of 1984 Plea for a Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights).

Our homage and gratitude to a father figure and a Nonkilling Poet Laureate. Om shanti.

Prof. Anoop Swarup, Chair, Centre for Global Nonkilling