Clàudia Darder: "Female desire is very dirty, but nobody has the balls to say it"

Palma“I write to you / because I seek you. / And because I want to kill you”. “They are mistaken: / darkness hides nothing. / It makes everything shine”. “I will tear out my eyes / so as not to see / that you are looking”. These are just three of the fragments with which the journalist and collaborator of l’ARA Balears Clàudia Darder (sa Pobla, 1994) debuts as a poet with Com una cussa (Adia Edicions), a poetry book with which she was a finalist for the Salvador Iborra award. In one of the epilogues, the poet Joan Tomàs Martínez Grimalt defines it as “a piece of hot meat that still beats”.

I would like to start by saying that we have lost a journalist, but we have gained a poet.

— Mallorca has not won any rich, in any case [Laughs]. I know I won't get rich with either. Nor is it my goal to be rich. [Laughs]

Well, with journalism one should be able to make a living, at least. I don't know if it's possible with poetry.

— I don't intend to live it or dedicate myself to it full-time. It's not a project I have, but I know I want to keep writing. I don't know if poetry or short fiction, but a novel, no.

Why?

— Because I find it a monstrosity! Joan Tomàs always says it, that it's a lot of work. And that's even though he's done one.

And writing verses isn't a lot of work?

— Yes, writing verses takes a lot of work. But I believe that poetry, as a language, is also a way of looking at the world, at things. There are verses that haunt you, and others that you chase. However, I am clear that precariousness does not help to write with tranquility.

What do you mean?

— It is very sad to say it like this, but, as I come from journalism, I have accepted it. You need a job that gives you stability to be able to do the reports you want. And the same happens with poetry. This poetry book has been possible because I had a decent job. Having time to write means having a salary that allows you to do so.

You say you take poetry very seriously, and I believe the poetry collection reflects that.

— To publish anything, I already have my Instagram, as I used to have my Fotolog and my Facebook. This is something else, poetry is a serious matter. And I'm already 31 years old. I know I'm not old, but I haven't published my first book at 22 either, and if I had, nothing would happen. But no matter how many years I've been writing, it generates a lot of respect for me to have published a book. It's a constant struggle between giving importance to the poetry collection and taking it away from yourself.

The book revolves around desire, in all its forms and manifestations, with all its virtues and flaws, causes and consequences. And it does so from an angle that is very different from the stereotypes that have traditionally been associated with female desire.

— Female desire is very dirty, but nobody has the balls to say it. The easy thing is the stereotype of a delicate woman, who doesn't say things and stays quiet. But the interesting thing that we women have done, and I'm not saying me, because if I've been able to say all this it's because many have said it before me, is to learn that desire can be violent, dirty, and hurtful. And I talk as much about unrequited desire as about the difference between what you want and what you get when you desire. For me, it's much more interesting not to adorn desire with frills because it doesn't need them.

And we are not only talking about erotic desire, although it is also present, in the book.

— No, no. I don't know how to say it without using expressions that might already be worn out, but desire is that place where you still think everything is possible. For me, the important thing is the will to love, whatever it may be and whoever it may be. Why should we repress such a beautiful thing? Why should we keep it? It's not the time, it's not the person... All this only forces us to repress ourselves. And, for me, we must understand desire above all as possibility.

The title is already suggestive and provocative, as is the poetry collection.

— I have been told many different things about the title and I really like to ask what it makes you think of. For me, this is part of the game, that “like a female dog” can mean many very different things. I have a friend, Isa Serra, who told me she loved the title because it could be a Bad Gyal song or a collection of poems by Clàudia Darder [Riu].

Does poetry serve more to know oneself or to understand the world?

— It depends on the will with which you write. It's like when you make a documentary, everything depends on where you put the camera. And words can be prisons, but they can also broaden everything. Each person looks at and understands words in a specific way, and this is where the poetic self must find a way to manifest itself, and to survive. This collection of poems is also a journey of recovery of the poetic self.

And has journalism influenced you in this poetic self?

— They are two ways of explaining reality. This collection of poems starts from an unrequited love story, a personal story that may sound distant from journalism. But in both journalism and poetry, you have to go out to investigate, to read, to listen, you have to perceive things that you can later put into words.

You have debuted very well accompanied: with epilogues by Joan Tomàs Martínez Grimalt and Miquel Perelló.

— I have felt very accompanied by them. Without them, the magazine Morlanda,Crestatx Poèticand without being a finalist for Salvador Iborra, it would not have come out. Or it would not have come out this way, and I am very grateful. Besides, at a time when so much is published and it is so easy to go unnoticed... It's a jungle, really. There are people who publish and don't get any interviews. And others, for whatever reason – in my case, because I've worked in the media – get more attention. We are not better than others for appearing in the press. Nor does the fact of publishing and no one paying attention to you make you naturally good. In any case, nothing guarantees the purpose of publishing: that you be read. Now then: both things, publishing and being read, are exciting.