The Association of Writers in the Catalan Language (AELC) presented the Jaume Fuster award this Tuesday to the Mallorcan poet Antonina Canyelles (Palma, 1942), a writer whose president emphasized that in addition to having – dedicated himself exclusively to poetry for more than 45 years and having “grown like weeds on the side of the roads”, a “visionary and anticipatory character” of issues that are today “at the center of the debate”, such as feminism, gender equality, language defense or environmentalism.
Canyelles’ literary career is unique, since after winning the Marià Aguiló prize in 1979 with his first book, Quadern de consequencias, he couldn’t find a publisher and had to self-publish it, but barely have an echo A couple of years later he published the book of poems with illustrations Patchwork, but his public voice was muted until 2005, when he published Piercing (Lleonard Muntaner) and his work began to emerge, and especially when he met its current editor, Jon López de Viñaspre, who in 2011 inaugurated the Lapislàtzuli publishing house with his anthology Putes i consentits, a title that is not only still alive but has just released a fourth edition.
López de Viñaspre, who has been publishing the bulk of his poetry, has made a gloss, which he has defined as a prayer to the “beautiful rocker”, now that he has “reached the age of the Rolling Stones”, ” to the poet of the skin and the muscle”, who “lives and writes far away from the rancid chapels and other mobs”, who “wanted to be a violinist and who luckily changed the bow for the pen”, “the who often believes that eternal love is fought in the trench”, “the one who knows that she loves with the liver because the heart is just a pretentious viscera”, “we ask you: that the poetic sap continues to sprinkle you you come”, and “may we never lack good poetry, this window to the world that are your poems”. The writer and editor wanted to toast “to Antonina Canyelles, Polish, red and bad whore”, because her poetry has often been irreverent and tongue-in-cheek.
Canyelles, who two years ago the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes already paid tribute on the occasion of his 80th birthday, was grateful, recognizing, of course, that for years “I have been denied bread and salt, but “it went well because I’m hypertensive”, she quipped, recalling that it was difficult for her to publish regularly again and she has never received any literary prizes or money, but “my prizes have been book clubs and high schools, we a beloved poet”. “Perhaps I write a type of poetry that contests don’t like – he continued – or I must have a perverse taste, because even the few times I have served as a jury in an award none of my candidates have won”. “Since I’m already very old, I don’t have to play aunties”, she insisted, after assuring that “we are not resentful”.
He also wanted to touch the ground to ensure that “writers are sometimes given too much importance”, and that in his books, “like everyone else’s, there may be some gems, but there are also poems that they are filling”, and “I also get doughnuts, because you don’t always make masterpieces”. In addition to comparing writing with cooking, which “always starts with a stir-fry”, he explained that he writes almost every day, and has no intention of stopping: “The day I stop writing will be the day I die”.
