Llucia Serra Ferre: "In poetry, humor is frightening to include; it can seem like you're trivializing what you write"

IbizaLlucia Serra Ferre (Eivissa, 1992) has just won the Ciutat de Manacor poetry prize with Et dibuix un portal in media something (i tu t’hi ajoques). Living in Mallorca since her adolescence, she is a philologist, a high school teacher in Son Servera, and runs a board game publishing company in Catalan, Dino Ludens. So that the reader can get an idea of her writing, in Et dibuix un portal..., she quotes and paraphrases a poem by Antonina Canyelles that says: “You can say my boat, but the sails are always the wind’s”. Llucia Serra’s version is as follows: “You can say my house / but the lands / are always the bank’s”. The poem is titled ‘Idealista’.

Do I have permission to include the last verse of the book?

— Okay.

“Someone will build a hotel here”.

— Yes, it seems fine to me to put it; it is a good synthesis of one of the central ideas of the book, which talks about how to inhabit a space, how hotel construction occupies any void left in the territory.

I draw you a portal in media something (and you lie down in it) is a disconcerting title. Have they called you from the publishing house to tell you if you can change it?

— Ha ha ha! No, it is not yet known which publisher it will be, and I hope they don't ask me to change it. I think it's a provocative title and I think it can be funny. The whole thing makes sense. The title is very long, but the poems are very synthetic, short; this contrast is good; besides, I wanted a somewhat postmodern title, with a somewhat mysterious I and you in it.

I find it a very Ibizan book.

— The first part has quite a few specifically Ibizan components. It talks about Ebusus, the god Bes...; I wanted to include all of that because it's part of me. The second part of the book talks about the memory of a Valencian grandfather of mine whom I only know through my mother's stories. He was a cinema doorman. Then there are many issues that affect us equally in Mallorca and Ibiza; the tourist invasion, overcrowding... These are phenomena that perhaps started in Ibiza, but have been reaching the rest of the Balearic Islands.

Sometimes it seems that humor and poetry are incompatible. This is not your case.

— Thank you very much. I like that you point it out. In this book perhaps I've let myself go a bit more; when we write poetry we want to be taken seriously and we tend to adopt profound questions; it's scary to include humor because it seems like you can trivialize what you write. I think there's humor in this book without it being a clown show. And it goes well with the topic we're discussing.

It is a book with important critical content. Did you look for them or did they just come up?

— A bit of both. The central core of the book came from poems that didn't fit into another work, and this idea emerged: to talk about memory as a space. Once I had articulated this central idea, I did look for criticism; there is a balance between more ambiguous or darker poems and others that have a clear message.

You dedicated your final degree project to studying the canon of Catalan literature in teaching. Do you see yourself within the canon?

— Ha ha ha! No, I don't think so, not right off the bat. I think canons should be plural. From Secondary school and from university, an effort is being made to open up these canons and include other types of creations. But it is true that my first book, Fonaments corcats, was included in an article about recommended books to start reading poetry. I was delighted.

Precisely this book won the Vila de Santanyí prize in 2024, and now you have obtained the Ciutat de Manacor Miquel Àngel Riera prize. It seems you have found the way to publish through prizes.

— Yes, the truth is yes. In fact, I haven't tried to publish anything outside of the awards, I see that the awards filter is a good path; little poetry is sold and little is read, and the awards are a good dissemination tool. Nor have I felt confident enough to go to a publisher and tell them: "Look, see if you can publish this". The awards are a bit to provide an outlet, especially for people who are starting to write. I was very pleased to receive this award, because I have read Miquel Àngel Riera a lot, I know the author's family, I lived in Manacor for seven years and, in fact, my mother still lives there.

Is it published too much?

— Too little is read. What happens is that we are a small country and we read little, but I think it is always positive that there is an offer. Perhaps what, to you, means nothing, to another, it does. It is true that it is difficult to keep track of everything that is published. And of course, you will not like all the poetry that is published, just as one reads, for example, romantic novels and not horror. The same happens with poetry.

I am a Secondary school teacher in Son Servera. Is Catalan as bad as they say, among the youngest?

— I teach sociolinguistic subjects; I teach them Catalan, Spanish, History... You hear little Catalan among the kids, even in towns like mine. We continuously have newcomers and we have to teach them everyday Catalan, it's complicated. I think that, in Palma, this is more noticeable than in the towns, but, even so, this decline in the social use of Catalan also reaches us here. Our job, that of teachers, is not to slacken; to keep working and not give up.

In You Go and Don't Come Back, one of the games you have created at your publishing house, there are six heroes taken from the tales, each with a special power. What would be your superpower?

— Ha ha ha! Let's see... I really like Espardenyeta, I find her charming, because she is a witty, cheeky, mischievous girl...; I would love to be like her. But I have to admit that I feel more identified with Bernadet the king's son, because he is more sensible. The truth is that the games we publish sell, we can't complain.