With triumphant spark

The same cannot be said for all recognitions, but in this case, it can be stated without a doubt: awards like the Bernat Vidal i Tomàs prize are important. And they are because, on one hand, they identify some of the new talents in Catalan-language poetry each year in a periodic manner, but they also end up being a celebration of great names who, when they win, reach significant milestones in their respective careers. Winning it was key, for example, for Lucia Pietrelli with Violacions, just as it was for Anna Gual with Molsa and for Damià Rotger with Arèola. It was also absolutely fundamental for presenting, for the first time, the work of a very young Pau Vadell i Vallbona, who, 21 years ago now, made his debut and is currently the official editor of the Santanyí awards through his independent label, AdiA Edicions, and it should not be necessary to mention that this year he is the commissioner of the Blai Bonet Year on the centenary of the birth of the beloved author from Santanyí. Long live. Now in my hands I have the latest installment of this link that pays homage to an authentic and encouraging master such as Bernat Vidal i Tomàs was, and this 2026 the honor has fallen into the hands of Quela Servera-Turnes with Compost present quasi constant, her first volume, her baptism of fire.

Almost constant present compost is an investigation into disappearance, but not a placid, gentle extinction: here there is the violence of objects that break, of matter suffering a process of devastation and rot, of bodies facing a thousand and one conflicts while they breathe and go in search of ephemeral pleasures, yes, but also the agony generated in the process of ceasing to be, as if living were a struggle but death were too. From here, reflections on the passage of time, on the relationships between human beings, on the bonds we establish with the natural and artificial elements of our environment… It is a coherent and definitely, and never better said, organic collection of poems, and I already know it was difficult for it not to be with such a title. It is modulated in sequences of rapturous free verse that surely can be powerfully recited, for its energy and its rage and its fury, and for the black humor and the bad temper it displays with a furious and mocking solemnity at the same time.

To all this, and it is not a little, is added a brave and determined sensuality much to my taste, and this invites us to indicate that we are facing another noble example of poetics of the body and morbid poetry, in this case also with a risky, daring, experimental and inciting character to revolts that turns Compost quasi constant, by Quela Servera-Turnes, into one of the most encouraging proposals to keep in mind for this 2026 without any kind of doubt.