Joan Salvat-Papasseit “is a young poet,” says the director of the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes, Izaskun Arretxe, and no one bats an eye because we celebrate the centenary of his death, when he was barely thirty years old and tuberculosis interrupted his poetic career. who later was “the great lyricist of the nova cançó.” And, with the permission of Màrius Torres – who died in 1942 at the age of 32 – or Bartomeu Rosselló-Pòrcel – who died in 1938 at the age of 24 –, the other young poets who suffered the same illness, Salvat managed to jump all the barriers. and reach all audiences, first from his books, but when it gained more momentum was when they began to set it to music in the sixties: today there are more than 500 songs that use his work, from the score of some poems by La rosa als llavis that Eduard Toldrà made in 1936 – some of which Montserrat Caballé sang and recorded in 1963 – to the versions published in 2022 by the mezzo Marta Valero, the pianist Albert Guinovart and the guitarist Izan Rubio on the album Cançons del segle XX (Picap), passing through the well-known works of Ovidi Montllor, Joan Manuel Serrat or Ramon Muntaner among many, and the new features that will come this year.
Arretxe recalled that Salvat “had no studies, only reading, and surely that also made him more daring in his ways. A poet who claims the figure of the poet in capital letters, and who also represents an advanced avant-garde in Europe, in substance and form. And a poet, finally, revolutionary in his political and social aspects, also in his poetry.”
The curator of Any Salvat-Papasseit, Ferran Aisa, wanted to emphasize the fact that despite everything, there have been times when Salvat’s work has been left a little on the sidelines, and that is why he also celebrates the multitude of publications that have already been published. They have begun to reach bookstores and the events that have been organized. Aisa, co-author with Mei Vidal of several books about the poet – among which there is a biography – has been in charge of explaining the objectives of the commemoration: “To restore him as a reference for young poets; offer reissues, new editions and translations; return his poems to the preferred position they have had in the world of music, and, finally, keep the flame of his poems alive in educational centers and make young students enjoy the creative avant-garde of his calligrams.”
One of the things that both Arretxe and Aisa have highlighted is that in this case the weight of the activities does not fall, as in other cases, on the ILC itself as organizer, coordinator and agglutinator. There are institutional events, yes, such as the one that will be held in July with Enric Casasses and Pascal Comelade, as well as an event that will be held in Parliament for Sant Jordi and a train from the Generalitat Railways will be named after the poet, but there will be a multitude of shows and his presence in festivals, starting with the tour in the Teatres d’Ateneu network of the show by Tomàs de los Santos and the actress Elsa Tronchoni in the framework of the Barnasants festival, or his presence in poetry festivals of Barcelona, ??Girona, Tarragona, Lleida (with a show by the poet Meritxell Cucurella-Jorba, the rapper Valdivia and the percussionist Davitillu), the book and wine fair L’Ensofrada (March, in the Priorat), the Litterarum of literary shows (Móra d’Ebre) or the performance in several concerts that will combine the music of Toldrà with a new creation composed in 2019 by Gerard López Boada and also dedicated to the poet.
On the academic side, in addition, there will be numerous meetings, but here the Department of Education has been quite involved, which will make an effort to bring Any Salvat-Papasseit to educational centers, precisely when his work has disappeared from the schools for a few years. obligatory readings that were the gateway for several generations, workshops have been planned for students from many schools and institutes, many of them based on the library programs, where the year will be especially celebrated, since they will also organize reading clubs. reading – with specific training for the drivers in charge of the Espais Escrits network –, recitals and activities of all kinds and for all audiences. The ILC, in fact, has created a website where you can consult the entire catalog – which is constantly growing. There will also be conferences and conferences at universities, at the Institut d’Estudis Catalans, the Fundació Guillem Viladot, Lo Pardal, in Agramunt, the Center de les Arts Lliures, Fundació Joan Brossa, the Fundació Palau or the MUHBA, among others. And even the Màrius Torres Chair of the University of Lleida has incorporated into its digitized corpus the only first edition that it was missing, that of Óssa minor, and it is now available to the public. The Library of Catalonia, for its part, will digitize all the documentation of the Salvat-Papasseit collection and make it open, a fact that it will celebrate with an event in June with Ferran Aisa, Manuel Guerrero, Dolors Marín, Miriam Reyes, Myriam Soteras and Joan Vinuesa .
And if normally these celebrations are accompanied by some exhibition, this year there will be no more and no less than seven, from the one curated by Aisa himself to which the Santiago Rusiñol Library in Sitges or the Josep Pla Foundation will dedicate it, passing through the one of poems illustrated organized by the Joan Salvat-Papasseit Institute and the La Fraternitat library or the Foto Torroella entity.
Regarding the publications, it is striking that with little difference there will be two versions of his complete poetry: the one made by Jordi Cornudella, with a prologue by Enric Casasses (Edicions 62), which is already in bookstores, while Jordi Martí Font He has co-edited it in Lo Diable Gros with Godall, with the historical prologue by Joan Fuster and epilogue by Ferran Aisa and Mei Vidal. Martí Font will also publish the aphoristic series Mots propis, and the translation of Smoke from the factory, the compilation of articles that Salvat published in Spanish under the name Gorkiano. Bromera will release La rosa als llavis in September, while El Cep i la Nansa, in addition to a selection of poems for young people with illustrations by Christian Inaraja, will publish his children’s work illustrated by Maria Espluga, and Comanegra plans to publish a comic by Agustín Comotto . For its part, ViBop has recently released El celler de les Galeries Laietanes, by Joan M. Minguet, which explores through the theatrical form this space where the bookstore where Salvat worked was and through which he also published some of his books. . La rosa als llavis has also recently been translated into Romanian and Cátedra has published an anthology into Spanish by Jordi Virallonga. A study by Ferran Gadea is also expected in June at the Barcino publishing house, among other novelties that will remain to remember a poet who went beyond, like one of his titles, the feat of the estels.
Catalan version, here
