Joan Salvat-Papasseit “is a young poet”, says the director of the Institution of Catalan Letters, Izaskun Arretxe, and no one is moved by the fact that we are celebrating the centenary of his death, when he was only thirty years old and tuberculosis poetic career of what years later was “the great lyricist of the new song”. And it is that, with the permission of Màrius Torres –died in 1942 at the age of 32– or Bartomeu Rosselló-Pòrcel –died in 1938 at the age of 24–, the other young poets who were taken by the same disease, Salvat managed to jump all the barriers and reach all audiences, first from his books, but when he gained more momentum was when they began to set him to music in the sixties: today there are more than 500 songs that use his work, from the score of ‘some poems from La rosa als llávis written by Eduard Toldrà in 1936 – some of which were sung and recorded by Montserrat Caballé 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 Songs of the 20th Century (Picap), passing through the well-known songs of Ovidi Montllor, Joan Manuel Serrat or Ramon Muntaner among many others, and the novelties that will come during the year.
Arretxe recalled that Salvat “had no studies, only readings, and surely this also made him bolder in his forms. 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 aspect, also in his poetry”.
The curator of the Salvat-Papasseit Year, Ferran Aisa, wanted to highlight the fact that despite everything, there have been times when Salvat’s work has been left a little on the sidelines, and for this reason he also celebrates the multitude of publications that they have already started to arrive in bookstores and the events that have been organized. Aisa, co-author with Mei Vidal of several books about Salvat – including a biography -, has been in charge of explaining the aims of the commemoration: “To restore him as a point of reference for young poets; offer reprints, new editions and translations; to return his poems to the preferred position they have had in the world of music, and finally to keep alive the flame of his poems in educational centers and to make young students enjoy the creative vanguard of their cal· tears”.
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, like the one that will take place in July with Enric Casasses and Pascal Comelade, just as there will be an event at the Parliament for Sant Jordi and a train from the Generalitat Railways will be named after the poet, but there will have a multitude of shows and its presence in festivals, starting with the tour at the Xarxa de Teatres d’Ateneu of the show by Tomàs de los Santos and the actress Elsa Tronchoni as part of the Barnasants festival, or its presence in the poetry festivals in 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 (Marçà, in the Priorat), the Litterarum d ‘literary shows (Móra d’Ebre) or the performance in several concerts that will combine Toldrà’s music 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 is quite involved, which will strive to bring the Salvat-Papasseit Year to educational centers, precisely when its work is years that has disappeared from the compulsory readings that were a gateway for several generations, There are planned workshops aimed at students from many schools and institutes, many of them from the programming of the libraries, where the year will be celebrated especially, since they will also organize reading clubs – with specific training for drivers in charge of the Espais Escrits network -, recitals and activities of all kinds and for all audiences. The ILC has, in fact, created a website where you can consult the entire catalog – in constant growth -. Conferences and conferences will also be held at the universities, at the Institute of Catalan Studies, the Guillem Viladot Foundation, Lo Pardal, in Agramunt, the Liberal Arts Centre, Fundació Joan Brossa, the Palau Foundation or the MUHBA, among others others And yet the Màrius Torres Chair at the University of Lleida has incorporated into its digitized corpus the only first edition it lacked, that of Óssa minor, and it is now available to the public. The Biblioteca de Catalunya, on the other hand, will digitize all the documentation of the Salvat-Papasseit fund and make it open, which it will celebrate with an event in June with Ferran Aisa, Manuel Guerrero, Dolors Marín, Miriam Reyes, Myriam Soteras and Joan wine
And if normally these celebrations are accompanied by some exhibition, this year there will be no less than seven, from the one curated by Aisa herself to the one dedicated to her by the Santiago Rusiñol Library in Sitges or the Josep Pla Foundation, passing through the illustrated poems organized by the Joan Salvat-Papasseit Institute and the La Fraternitat library or that of the Foto Torroella entity.
As for the publications, it is worth noting that with little difference there will be two versions of his complete poetry: the one by Jordi Cornudella, with a foreword by Enric Casasses (Edicions 62), which is already in bookstores, while Jordi Martí Font has co-edited Lo Diable Gros with Godall, with the historical prologue by Joan Fuster and an epilogue by Ferran Aisa and Mei Vidal. Martí Font, however, will also publish the aphoristic series Mots propis, and the translation Fum de fábrica, the collection of articles that Salvat published in Spanish under the name Gorkiano. Bromera will publish in September La rosa als llavís, 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 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 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 of it in Spanish by Jordi Virallonga. A study by Ferran Gadea at the Barcino publishing house is also expected in June, among other novelties that will remain to remember a poet who went beyond the feat of the stars.
