Francesc Pastor's reflection on nursing homes, winner of the Joan Alcover Poetry Prize

Palm"Visits to family and friends in nursing homes have had a profound impact on me, one I felt compelled to express through poetry," explains Francesc Pastor (Mutxamel, 1962), "because I've encountered so many lost gazes. Gazes of people carrying so much inside, unable to express it." This is how the Valencian writer, who has worked as a teacher and professor at the University of Alicante, explains the content of his poetry collection. In paradisumAwarded the 2025 Joan Alcover Poetry Prize.

"In fact, the title already speaks to this, to this paradise where we're supposed to arrive at the end of life, which turns out not to be exactly that. I also wanted to create a collection of poems with a defiant tone, an invitation to rethink what kind of society we have, which is strange." Thus, each of the poems in the collection is headed by the first and last name of one of the characters Pastor wanted to give voice to in the book, although he clarifies that they are all fictional. "I wanted to put myself, and the reader, in the shoes of these people who tell us a memory or an experience, and also their feelings," the author shares.

Pastor received the news of the awards ceremony's cancellation when he was already in Palma, this Monday at midday, and it will have been the second of the three awards he has received in Mallorca that he has been unable to collect on the scheduled day. "The same thing happened to me with the Bernat Vidal i Tomàs prize in 2020, because of the pandemic," he recalls, "but well, these things happen," says the author of poetry collections such as Soul and Travel lyrics, who was also recognized with the Ciutat de Manacor Miquel Àngel Riera prize in 2023. "Awards are very important for people who write, especially in poetry. If you're not a very prominent figure, it's difficult to publish without any awards, even though, in the end, all we want is to share poetry with other people."