Suck my autonomy

In the interviews that Mahmud Darwish gives in the beautiful volume La Palestina com a metàfora (Lleonard Muntaner, Editor), the Palestinian poet delves into crucial themes, such as the idea of permanent exile and the breakdown of History due to the fragility of the links of transmission –an idea that Lluís Calvo analyzes in the magnificent essay Els llegats (Arcàdia) – and also into the fact that the body has become the last bulwark, the last refuge, the definitive weapon with which to continue the fight in these times of chaos. I would dare to say that this is one of the keys to understanding the proliferation and exaltation of corporeal poetics and morbid poetry, essential trends in 21st-century Catalan poetry in a movement of forces that markedly opposes a recalcitrant neo-formalism that returns to meter and rhyme as foundations for verse writing. I thought of all this while reading, and enjoying, El cant de les cigales, the newest and most brutal title by the Llucmajor poet Cecília Navarro, a work more than worthy of the 43rd Manuel Rodríguez Martínez Ciutat d’Alcoi Poetry Prize.

We had the good fortune to be able to read some of the poems, the most erotic ones, thanks to the formidable anthology Un llumí a la llengua. Dotze poetes catalans diuen el desig (Edicions de la Ela Geminada), but a close reading of El cant de les cigales takes sensuality further: it is not merely an explicit statement of physical joy, a celebration of pleasure, and a confession of libidinous fervor: we are faced with a true existential manifesto that elevates the body with all its physiological splendor. The architecture of the book unfolds in five parts that function as symphonic modulations of the same suite, a structure that reminds me of the one Eduard Sanahuja i Yll has often used in some of his best volumes.

The reading rhythm is frantic due to the conciseness of the poems, the forcefulness of the images, and the exuberance of the language. There are poems to frame, such as 'Frit de matances' (Fried of killings), which begins thus: “You are a simple little whore of God / I would have licked your balls better!”. A fusion is achieved between the sacred and the profane, mystical ecstasy and brilliant escapism, which reminds us of the subversive and scandalous line of Blai Bonet – of whom we celebrate the centenary of his birth this year –, but also the orgiastic and provocative style of Biel Mesquida – recent recipient of the Premi d’Honor de les Lletres Catalanes (Honorary Prize for Catalan Literature) –, and to top off the gamble, the voice of Cecília Navarro takes the venereal fury of Maria Mercè Marçal to new heights, dialogues with the textualist line of Anne Carson in the style of the seventies, and offers an audiovisual bacchanal in the style of the beloved films of Bigas Luna. The empathetic, likeable, and programmatic epilogue by Jeroni Mas Fiol seals a splendid new book by Cecília Navarro, a brave poet who is already a favorite of mine.