Full Description
Joan Margarit (1938-2021) was one of Spain's major modern writers. He worked as an architect and first published his work in Spanish, but over the past four decades became known for his mastery of the Catalan language, and was Spain's most widely acclaimed contemporary poet. The melancholy and candour of his poetry show his affinity with Thomas Hardy, whose work he translated. He was awarded both the 2019 Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world's highest literary honour, and the Reina Sofía Prize for Ibero-American Poetry 2019, the most important poetry award for Spain, Portugal and Latin America.
In the much praised Tugs in the Fog: Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2006), Joan Margarit evoked the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath, the harshness of life in Barcelona under Franco, and grief at the death of a beloved handicapped daughter, reminding us that it is not death we have to understand but life. Five of his later collections were translated by Anna Crowe and published by Bloodaxe in two compilations, Strangely Happy (2011) and Love Is a Place (2016). Wild Creature brings together the poems of his final two collections, Un hivern fascinant (An amazing winter, 2017) and Animal de bosc (Wild creature, 2020).
The two books that make up this final collection in English show us a poet writing at the end of his life, and facing up to his approaching death with courage, humility and even humour. Confronting loss is one of Margarit's enduring themes, and many of these poems do just that but - continuing the theme of his previous collection, Love Is a Place - there are even more that celebrate love and everyday domesticity, and he reminds us that love needs to be worked at. These are poems that arise naturally out of an examined life, and although he does not spare himself or the folly of our times, there is great tenderness in the way he reaches out to embrace life, love, and the pain of the past. A solitary, Margarit pays tribute to other writers and artists of that ilk, to the rural poverty of his childhood, and to the wild creature deep in each one of us whom we ignore at our peril.
Contents
AN AMAZING WINTER (2017)
12 An amazing winter
13 Atocha Hill
14 The mysterious island
15 Works of love
16 Woman about to do her hands
17 Building a destiny
18 Verdaguer
19 Familiarities
20 Goyescas
21 On insults
22 Memory's punishment
23 North wind
24 Our time
25 Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?
26 All-in wrestling
27 Stroke
28 Future
29 The albatross
30 Road
31 Through pain
32 What enlightens me
33 More than a song
34 Thermopylae
35 Life
36 Golden Age
37 Rides
38 Photograph of a girl
39 De senectute
40 Jorge Manrique
41 If you read this book
42 Time's lyric
43 Courage
44 Final performances
45 Known cruelty
46 Purposes
47 Behind the glass
48 Instants
49 Mythology
50 The solitude of the sea
51 No other beginning
53 Epilogue to An amazing winter
WILD CREATURE (2020)
58 The two snowfalls
59 The kitchen
60 Museums
61 Silent woman
62 Ángel González, a memory
63 Don't talk about this with anybody
64 From poverty
65 Clear and difficult
66 Seductions, after so much time
67 Lost village
68 Wild creature
69 Beloved time with her
70 Iliad
71 Note on truth
72 Silence and survival
73 First lesson
74 Orpheus
75 The calm of coming back
76 The poem and the wall
77 The depths of poverty
78 Morning in Sant Just
79 Family lunch
80 A simple farewell
81 The final intimacy
82 The beginning of everything
83 Protections, consolations
84 Rachid Boujedra
85 Faraway smiles
86 Seagulls
87 A price
88 Chamber music
89 Love and fear
90 The long ending
91 In the early morning
92 What is approaching?
93 The picture of Santes Creus monastery
94 Autumn in Elizondo
95 Final pause
96 Murmur of rain
97 The house
98 Consolations
99 Building
100 Nightfall for old lovers
101 The only loyalty
102 Coming out of a concert
103 Dark Night of the Soul
104 Deep paradox
105 Two encounters
106 A poignant indifference
107 Everything is going quiet
108 Mistakes and sewers
109 Inspiration
110 Gratitude
111 Reasons and ways
112 Betrayal is no longer possible
113 Walking through a forest at night
114 A joyous prudence
115 Building work
116 Under a deep blue sky
117 Sick old man
118 About Babel
119 Josep Maria Subirachs
120 A daughter
121 Vincent Van Gogh
122 With you
123 The forgotten dream
124 Attempt at conclusions
125 Courtyard song
126 The past, so difficult at times
127 Another happy world
128 You, me and music
129 Memory of a field
130 Fear of what we are
131 Our dead, Raquel
132 One winter morning, 2020
133 The highest mountain
135 Epilogue
