<![CDATA[Ara Balears in English - poetry]]> 10 <![CDATA["Female desire is very dirty, but nobody has the balls to say it"]]>

“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”.

]]> <![CDATA["Poetry is useless and necessary in this system of war"]]>

The exoskeleton is not the title of a zoology book. Or is it. It is the title of Jèssica Ferrer's latest poetry collection, a work that won the Maria Mercè Marçal prize and has just arrived in bookstores. In her first book, Som aquí, Ferrer described massacres from the pig's point of view; now, in an exercise that lies between entomology and metaphysics, she speaks of the limits of the 'I' and the 'we' using the exoskeleton as a metaphor; the exoskeleton is the external skeleton found, for example, in ants. Between Som aquí (2022) and L’exoesquelet (2026), Ferrer has also had time to publish Fissures (2023), which constitutes one of the most dazzling careers in Catalan poetry in recent times. Jèssica Ferrer was born in Ibiza in 1993; in addition to writing, performing with Ses Honorables Virtuts Il·lògiques, and promoting the publication of Revista 078, in the summer she cultivates the garden and collects carob beans.

]]> <![CDATA["Poetry does not spare you any pain"]]>

A new award is added to the career of Sebastià Alzamora (Llucmajor, 1972), already recognized with awards such as the Carles Riba, the Sant Jordi and the Jocs Florals de Barcelona, among others. But upon receiving the Josep Maria Llompart for best poetry work in Catalan for Sala Augusta, followed by Llengua materna (Proa), awarded by the Associació d’Escriptors en Llengua Catalana (AELC) within the framework of the Cavall Verd awards, the writer considers that he is the one who is added to a list of authors who, he says, he hopes not to disappoint. Miquel Martí i Pol, Vicent Andrés Estellés and Antònia Vicens, among others, have received it before him. “It gives a special thrill because those who recognize your work are your colleagues, the people with whom you share your profession,” he confesses.

]]> <![CDATA['Trast', the bravest cry of Biel Mesquida]]> With Trast, fresh from the oven of the LaBreu Edicions factory on a twentieth anniversary that is achieving a lot of recognition, Biel Mesquida signs one of the most abundant and necessary books of his career, a poetic work that arrives at the right moment: after the well-deserved recognition of the Premi d’Honor de les Lletres Catalanes, but also in a sociological and political period of great global turbulence, with a disastrous return to far-right tendencies that should concern us much more. Trast is a manifesto, a fiery textual proposal that explodes in our faces to remind us that the voice of this pan-Catalan creator is fundamental because it builds foundations and, moreover, is in full catalytic combustion, in furious carnage. This new volume made of exalted verses is an explosion of lucid rage and vindicatory energy that grants no respite: a long and torrential poem fragmented into eight songs that arises from an almost physical urgency and unfolds just like a proud fountain that does not stop flowing, faithful to the propulsive impulse. Here, cruel beauty is not an escape but a sacred place from which demands for radical justice are raised, spoken with all names and all scars, both those of the body and those of the spirit. Biel Mesquida establishes a tense and vibrant dialogue with the maladjustments of History. Perceptive consciousness, always finely tuned, is traversed by the injustices that bleed, both inherited and current, as if the (in)civil war of '36 had not fully closed. In this sense, Trast is a polyphony of rebellion but also of revelation: the title itself condenses a devastating diagnosis of the present, of an island landscape turned into residue, of a massacred time in which territory, language, and custom seem to dissolve under the weight of material and symbolic perversions. And yet, far from any apocalyptic temptation, Mesquida's poetry does not resign itself; it dares to continue radiating linguistic powers that reactivate sensibilities and shake memories until they are once again incisive, critical, alive. In this quintessential volume there is a reckless density, a defined personality that refuses to be closed off, baring itself completely: each verse is written at the limit, with an intensity that invites reading with all senses open. In dialogue with major pieces of his work such as the poem 'Sgt. Pepper Wants You: Auca', the mosaic that is Trast resumes and multiplies the ability to converge epic and barbarism, culture and experience, collage and chant in a flow that is both tradition and postmodernity. The result is an extraordinary artifact that gallops between centuries and registers, and that confirms Biel Mesquida as an essential creator: a writer who writes and transforms language into a force capable of resisting, denouncing, and dreaming.

]]> <![CDATA[Inca pays tribute to Blai Bonet with an edition of the Poetry Festival that fuses verses and electronic music]]>

Inca will once again become a center of poetry in the coming weeks with the new edition of the Poetry Festival, which kicks off on March 20th in the cloister of Sant Domingo. The City Council has presented a program with a clear interdisciplinary focus, in which verses are combined with electronic music and visual arts to create unique poetic experiences.

]]> <![CDATA[Restitution of Joan Alcover]]> In the context of the centenary of the death of the poet Joan Alcover, one of the key anniversaries of 2026 along with the Clementina Arderiu Year and the Blai Bonet Year, Edicions 62 is releasing the complete and critical edition of his Poems Edited by Ignasi Moreta, who traces the circumstances of the texts' composition, offers a useful critical interpretation, provides metrical and rhythmic details, and, to top off a continuous masterclass, comments on possible variations in previous editions. What a compendium! We are faced with a fundamental, extremely important work that establishes, organizes, clarifies, structures, and brings together, as never before, the corpus of Alcover's Catalan-language production.

]]> <![CDATA[I no longer have wings, but my angel still believes in me]]> I discovered the poet Ramon Guillem thanks to the songs that singer-songwriter Miquel Gil had created based on some of the most emblematic texts of the author from Catarroja. From then on, I read him avidly and was even lucky enough to meet him—and I say "lucky" because he was an exceptional human being. Our first in-person meeting was, in fact, in Llucmajor during the Cavall Verd awards ceremony organized by Miquel Bezares and dedicated to Maria Antònia Salvà. Laughing, I told him about the anthology of young poets we were preparing at the time. FirestoneAnd his face turned one of the palest whites I've ever seen before he told me that was the title he'd thought of for the book of poems he was writing. He had to change it, but it was for the better, since his book ended up being called Abyss and bird, as a tribute to the composer Olivier Messiaen and the very famous movement "Abîme des oiseaux" of the Quartet pour el fin takes time.

]]> <![CDATA[Sex, pinching each other like crabs sucking each other]]> Poem of Desire It is an epic poem that assumes, from the outset, a lofty philosophical and poetic ambition. Rosa Font Massot shapes her new work from a theoretical framework she herself articulates: a dialogue with Baruch Spinoza and Simone Weil. From the former, she takes the idea that the essence of humankind is desire. From the latter, the intuition that desire projects humankind toward the absolute and the limitless. These two pillars of thought underpin a literary investigation that understands desire not only as an erotic impulse but also as thought, language, and the power of ontological projection. The work constructs a literary space in which desire is not confined to the relationship between bodies; it expands until it merges with the world: desire is a fusion with nature, with what is perceived, and with what we are. This expansion transforms the experience of desire into a way of knowing, speaking, and inhabiting reality. The body is not only pure desiring matter; it is also a fascinating cognitive vehicle.

]]> <![CDATA[A naked man jumps into the void]]> If last week I praised an essay that invites you to fly (The winged ones (by Elisabet Riera, published by Males Herbes), today I will celebrate a poetry collection that invites us to delve into the exultation of blue. It is aboutThe diver Ricard Martínez Pinyol's book, published by LaBreu Edicions, is a volume in which each composition is a sonic artifact, a piece of verbal ingenuity where the word not only signifies but also resonates, reverberates, and intertwines with the others as if weaving an organic web. The poet writes with an almost sculptural awareness of language, working the balance between rhythm and emotion, between the inner pulse of the verse and the idea that runs through it. The page becomes a living space, a small ecosystem where the ink doesn't drip uselessly but flows, and where the text's internal music sustains a precise yet not rigid architecture. This desire to create a sonic and physical experience places the reader on the aquatic stage of the verses not as a spectator, but as a body propelled by a current, listening to its ripples and perceiving, in a Greco-Latin way, its pressure, sensual and dangerous.

]]> <![CDATA[Blai Bonet Year]]> If in 2025 we celebrated the centenary of Josep M. Llompart's birth, in 2026 there will be a grand celebration for Blai Bonet, as it will be one hundred years since this illuminating writer came into the world to shake up life and poetry. Thanks to Edicions de 1984, we are fortunate to enter this Blai Bonet Year with the corrected and expanded critical edition of the Complete Poetry, by the writer from Santanyí, edited by Nicolau Dols and Gabriel ST Sampol, with a revised prologue by Margalida Pons. This fantastic 1,374-page volume expands upon what was published eleven years ago, recovering previously unpublished texts duly retrieved from the Bernat Vidal i Tomàs Archive, and also includes new poems or poems already known but with notable variations.

]]> <![CDATA[Let's raise our glasses!]]> The neo-Kantian philosopher Ernst Cassirer defined human beings as symbolic animals, that is, creatures who enjoy creating symbols, playing with metaphors, and celebrating rituals of all kinds. Activities like these strengthen bonds and help build individual and collective memories. Around these tribal foundations also orbit commemorative dates: specific dates we remember for different reasons, all valid for maintaining the fabric of community. For example, we give a sense of completion to the centenaries of the birth of prominent figures—in fact, as is well known, this year we celebrate the Year of Llompart and 2026 will be the Year of Blai Bonet—but we also hold significant events around round numbers, which we find more appealing, as they say, let's forget that everything is a convention…

]]> <![CDATA[The power and glory of Antònia Arbona]]> The philologist, writer and translator Antònia Arbona publishes her sixteenth book of poems at Documenta Balear, Power and gloryA sophisticated meta-literary epic that engages with Catalan icons (the clear presence of Josep M. Llompart and Blai Bonet is essential) and universal writers (William Wordsworth, Walt Whitman, Ezra Pound, Paul Celan, Graham Greene). It is accompanied by some twenty paratexts, including prologues, epilogues, and commentaries by Pere Perelló i Nomdedéu, M. Magdalena Gelabert i Miró, Sebastià Bennasar Llobera, Gabriel Janer Manila, Pep Siset, Nicolás Dols, Miguel Cardell, Cristina Álva Sureda, and Martí. The cover illustration is by Israel Clarà.

]]> <![CDATA[Seraphim and zombies]]> Through the pages of his new poetry volume, Posthuman joysAnna Pantinat unfolds a lyrical investigation that takes the founding of the Monastery of Saint Peter of Casserres as its starting point, delving into a much more ambitious exploration. The work eschews any temptation of historical fiction or recreation of the past, becoming instead an inquiry into the foundations of desire and domination. Pantinat revisits the founding narrative of a sacred space to uncover the tensions that have sustained it: blood, genealogy, faith, and the word as instruments of control. Behind silent stone walls, and amidst the wonders expressed in stories written in lowercase and History written in uppercase, a system of human relations trembles, permeated by hierarchy, predation, and the need to impose dogmas.

]]> <![CDATA[Bleja dignity the word redeemer]]> Lucía Palliser Santana is one of the most dynamic Menorcan poets on the current scene. In addition to writing poetry and publishing magnificent books such as Every vein of life (Stonberg, 2020), she is a glossator, she collaborates with the magazine Naked, is a member of Soca de Mots and is associated with the organizing team of the Illanvers and Vershivern festivals. Her latest literary creation was recently published at the New Moll Publishing House: Ombudsman, a set of eight lyrical suites that explore the pain of heartbreak from different perspectives and with varied expressive resources. For example, the first part, "Vulnerability," adopts a confessional tone that helps establish the theme and tone; the second, "Do Minor," is propelled by musical themes that allow the author to create short rhythmic compositions with strict meter and rhyme; the third, "Provisionality," uses typographical emphasis in the style of Salvat-Papasseit to transform some words into visceral screams. The central section gives the volume its title and thus unfolds an (anti)epic chant in the manner of an almost Homeric lament. The subsequent segments ('Rescue', 'Evidence', 'Reverse' and 'Farewell') are variations on the same ideal of overcoming psycho-emotional conflict that is presented in pages that present a journey that goes from despair to hope.

]]> <![CDATA[Craving diamonds]]> The Café Central publishing house was founded 35 years ago. Since its founding – led by Antoni Clapés and Víctor Sunyol – this book house has hosted some of the most outstanding poetic works of the last three decades and has, indeed, had talent from the Balearic Islands. The fertile list ranges from Àngel Terron to Antònia Vicens, passing through Nora Albert, Margarita Ballester, Andreu Gomila, Isidor Marí, Biel Mesquida, Jaume Munar, Arnau Pons, Ponç Pons, Antoni Vidal Ferrando, Gabriel de ST Sampol, Jean Serra, Lluís Servera and Antoni Xumet Ros. From the aforementioned poet, translator and editor Xumet Rosselló, born in Port de Pollença, the following is now published. The right measure of cold in the Gardens of Samarkand collection with a beautiful epilogue by Teresa Pascual, who asserts that it is an important volume created from a very personal, beautiful but also painful writing, and which invites profound reflections on the rawest depths of life and the essence of the human being in the face of the pristine coldness of the world. The book recovers two previous works by the author (Nakedness and poison and Styx) but carefully revised for this reissue. The unpublished Celanío-sounding poems included in the final section, The slow leaves, complete an impressive work.

]]> <![CDATA[Josep Maria Llompart, the man who only wanted to be a poet]]> Josep Maria Llompart lived a peaceful life dedicated exclusively to writing, but his attitude toward life was based on the conviction that culture is inseparable from collective responsibility. For this reason, he left us with reflections on the commitment of writers, stating that "a writer, if he wants to be faithful to his people, cannot remain indifferent to the attacks they suffer. Words must be weapons and consolation, resistance and hope." In difficult times, Llompart and an entire generation of writers understood that the book was a weapon, a trench against forgetfulness and submission.

]]> <![CDATA[Portocristo hosts 'Poetic Sea', a dialogue between Miquel Àngel Riera, the arts, and the sea.]]>

Manacor City Council presents the new 'Mar Poètic' series, a cultural initiative born from the desire to connect poetry, music, dance, and the visual arts with the marine environment and with the work of Miquel Àngel Riera as its guiding thread.

]]> <![CDATA[Against the scum]]> According to Carl Gustav Jung, there is a collective unconscious from which we draw to obtain a shared wisdom, a pillar of reference that helps us enjoy basic cultural foundations. Taking this conception to its extreme, we reach the conclusion that we constantly draw upon other higher realities, as if, while living, we were nourished by Plato's world of ideas. "We don't write, a discourse is dictated to us," Bartomeu Fiol declared. Therefore, the poet, more than a creator, is a medium or, as Márius Sampere asserted, a demiurge, that is, an ambassador between realities or, more practically, a satellite dish that links the earthly plane with celestial orders. Robert Graves argued that the poet, perpetually in love, does nothing but wait and listen to the dictates of the White Goddess...

]]> <![CDATA['O fado', so there is no doubt]]> Seeing and listening to Marco Mezquida is always a new experience. From any branch of music that passes through his eclectic style, a cutting always emerges, as delightful as it is implausible. Therefore, seeing him perform fados is like gathering the delicious fruits of a previously unknown tree. He arrives accompanied by Lisbon singer Lina Rodrigues, with whom they have given a small twist to the sad genre par excellence, starting with the piano, the instrument over which the songs are veiled. This circumstance alone is quite significant, and I'd like to think that, in some way, it also requires small changes in the way they sing. In any case, the concert they gave in Pollença, within the framework of Sondenitide 25, in the legendary Claustro de Sant Domingo, and with which they began the tour to present the album they have recorded and which will be released in September, was completely encouraging, and with the public, which almost filled the venue, right to say goodbye to the couple.

]]> <![CDATA[A book that promises a new genesis]]> Victor Erice has been able to convey it delightfully with his latest film: closing one's eyes does not always mean denying reality, nor does it necessarily express a desire to escape from the world; it can be the gesture that participates in an absolute and supreme moment of revelation, of epiphany. The film is full of epiphanies and revelations. Book of Minutes by Gemma Gorga, recently recovered by Stonberg Editorial, which returns after years of being out of print, but more than a return, it's a true resurrection: the book now includes a cover and an illustration by the much-missed visual artist Pere Salinas, as well as the epilogue by the always cosmogonic Màr, a powerful portico that makes it clear that we are dealing with an extraordinary book. Twenty years later, it continues to be so. It's curious that these days there are people who argue that the new and unexpected purchase of an independent publishing house by the Planeta group will not mean a loss of identity: cases like that of Columna, the label that published the first edition of the volume with which Gorga won the prestigious Miquel de Palol Prize in 2006, but they demonstrate radical changes. It's necessary to toast with hope for worthy and necessary recoveries like this one.

]]>