<![CDATA[Ara Balears in English - Left]]> 10 <![CDATA[The religion of memories]]> Vincles,, by Feliu Formosa, in the prestigious Jardins de Samarcanda collection by Cafè Central, is a wonderfully lucid and moving book, a work in which the poet seems to want to stitch back together the essential threads of existence. The thirty-two poems that make up the volume, written in hexasyllables, recover a meter that the author had already explored in the Llibre de les meditacions and which here acquires a new, more restrained breath and, nevertheless, of high intensity. The book is read under the light of Cançoner, one of his masterpieces, and such importance is explicitly underscored in the note that closes the volume. It is not, therefore, a conventional retrospective exercise, but rather a purely poetic operation: returning to one's own life to discover what persists and which words can still give form to what has been lived.Feliu Formosa writes from his current situation in a nursing home, and memory continuously opens doors to other times and spaces, to decisive episodes of his trajectory, and to figures who have left deep imprints. The lectureship in Heidelberg during the 1959-1960 academic year, Maria Plans, Turin, or other psychogeographic places appear as beacons of an intimate cartography in which facts and corners are repositories of identity. This ability to make the present moment coexist with the successive layers of the past gives the book a special density: every memory is a way of reliving what seemed buried, lost.Maria Enrich's prologue aptly accompanies this new and precious poetic foray, while the presences of Bertolt Brecht and Joan Vinyoli place Vincles within a literary genealogy that the genius from Sabadell invokes not only from erudition but above all from a creative fraternity. Brecht is a beneficial tutelary shadow, a conscience that helps to exalt civil and expressive possibilities, and the winks to Vinyoli, from the very title, are tributes to a master and a friend. Vincles invites us to reconnect apparently paradoxical realities: the now and the yesterday, but also the poet and those elements that have grounded a powerful life itinerary. Deep down, it is a work about the need to re-mem-ber in the primordial sense that Blai Bonet gave to this verb: to pass through the heart again that which was lived so that it does not disappear completely. Formosa converts such a need into a form of creation and, also, into a form of consolation: poetry cannot restore lost time, no, but it can rescue its supreme melodies, it can resignify the vestiges and ensure that a life, by being evoked and recreated, continues to generate beauty. ‘Vincles, a serene and deeply moving work, confirms Feliu Formosa as one of the great living masters of Catalan poetry, a titan among us.

]]> <![CDATA[Esquerra per Calvià is born, a unitary candidacy open to citizenship for 2027]]>

Decide Calvià, Esquerra Unida de Calvià, Moviment Sumar Illes Balears and MÉS per Calvià presented this Saturday the coalition Esquerra per Calvià, a unitary candidacy with which the four formations plan to run in the municipal elections of May 2027.

]]> <![CDATA[Nothing threatens the Ibizan political oasis (except the next elections)]]>

Politics has become a risky activity in Spain, a permanent race to sustain improbable majorities, a task more suited to acrobats and movie stuntmen. People who wouldn't suffer from vascular problems under any circumstances. Even in Andalusia, the PP's majority has not withstood the wear and tear. Anxiety and balancing acts: this is also the general situation in the Balearic Islands. Except in Ibiza. On the most turbulent island in the Mediterranean, as modern as it is feverish, politicians live in a beneficial oasis: it is the magic of absolute majority. There is one year left until the next local and regional elections (the last ones were on May 28, 2023) and not a leaf stirs on a tree here. Certainly, in recent weeks Aena has livened things up a bit with its delirious proposal to expand the airport. But hey! We know what we're about here; in a couple of days, no one will remember Aena and its megalomaniacal dreams – which I have no doubt will be executed to a high percentage. The season is starting, and we have to make money for the whole year.

]]> <![CDATA[Elections are smelled]]> In the Balearic Islands, no elections have been called yet, but the characteristic smell of pre-campaign is already in the air: more headlines, more polls, more visits to markets and fairs, and more politicians promising that, now yes, they have understood what really worries people...

]]> <![CDATA[Post-capitalist dissatisfaction]]> Note before getting to the point: this is, clearly, the least sexy headline I've ever written. 

]]> <![CDATA[Everything that doesn't move, breaks]]> In the spring of 2022, I had the opportunity to interview Oriol Junqueras. He had been released from prison just under a year before. I began the interview by addressing the division among pro-independence individuals and groups concerned with preserving the unique identity of Catalan culture. Junqueras suddenly alerted me: in Europe, discussing identity issues is frowned upon, especially now with the rise of the far right and the fear that we are regressing to the situation before the Second World War.

]]> <![CDATA[The left loves Vox]]> Now that the new political year is beginning, I'd like to say something undeniable: it seems the left likes the PP and Vox to govern. As the poet and activist García Montero put it: the left-wing parties are "very interested" in the existence of Vox, a party they believe needs to be "protected." Because the more noise the fascists make, the more mobilized the left is. Yes, yes, you didn't misread me. When the right is in power, the progressives seem to light up like St. John's rockets: assemblies, demonstrations, banners, statements... A real festival of social energy.

]]> <![CDATA[Digital streamlining]]> In Leaving the vampire's castle Mark Fisher had already warned of the toxic and destructive atmosphere that, alongside the expansion of social media, had poisoned the left. Fisher detected a dangerous tendency toward maximalism and culture war (above class warfare), the boasting of moral purity, finger-pointing, digital lynching, and a marked inclination toward overacting and spectacle.

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