Do you have a terrace that you don’t use much? What can you do about it? Elena Martín, from the poetry publishing house La Bella Varsovia -now part of Anagrama-, had an idea: a festival. He put a thread on the needle and in a few days they already had a name, poster and collaborators, because it was not about doing it alone.
Thus, on Wednesday, Brillante Diosa was celebrated – at Anagrama’s headquarters on Calle Pau Claris -, which was also joined by the publishers Ultramarinos and Documents Documenta, with the reservations to go sold out in a few days. The line-up, however, has last-minute changes: Luna Miguel and Pol Guasch cannot be there, and Lluís Ruiz, editor of both Documents Documenta and Anagrama, has signed up.
“Fiction, brilliant Goddess! Rip the veil / that you lent to the poet, / y aléjate callada”, opening verses of Emilia Pardo Bazán’s Ode that have served to give the event its title and that Elena Medel, director of La Bella, recites to begin Warsaw and Mistress of Ceremonies. Like the poets who will recite there, the audience is young – relatively young, that the perception of the age of others passes for one’s own – and female, in addition to people from the house, such as the publisher Silvia Sesé or the general manager, Eva Congil.
Considering that there are six participants, the readings are short and quick. “En los bordes de algo que termina”, says Claudia González Caparrós, but the recital has just begun. Lluís Ruiz acts as a substitute rhapsode and, generously, reads poems by Guim Valls, Maria Sevilla and Enric Casasses. Unai Velasco – author at La Bella Varsovia and editor at Ultramarinos – recites that “anochecía al este de la isla”, but no, there is still light on the poetic island of this Eixample courtyard. Blanca Llum Vidal recites Guasch’s Poem of Destruction, followed by the first letter of La princesa sou Vós and a poem in which she pays tribute to other women poets. Sara Torres begins with a poem by Miguel and continues with some from Ritual del baño, her own book with which she feels the most. Gabriel Ventura closes the evening with some unpublished poems he calls Spiders, and which lead him to “imagine the farthest point from us”. And there is still time to take advantage of the playground.
On Thursday we could have gone to the palace of the Julio Muñoz Ramonet Foundation, where Club Editor presented the new edition of Jardí vora el mar by Mercè Rodoreda, where the water agreed to approach from above and below: first the rain and then the sprinklers, but it did not silence the words of Toni Sala and Maria-Arboç Terrades.
The Poesia i festival, which began at the end of June and ends tomorrow, extends throughout the Maresme, and this Thursday was a very full day centered in Caldes d’Estrac (it is also celebrated in Sant Pol de Mar, Mataró, Teià, Sant Andreu de Llavaneres, Dosrius, Alella, Arenys de Mar and Sant Vicenç de Montalt). First, at the Palau Foundation, Carme Castells, Joana Serra and Victòria Parra, from the Mallorca Literària Foundation, inaugurate the exhibition The only real thing is seeing. Blai Bonet and art, focused on the Majorcan poet’s relationship with painting and photography, but also explores his own production with some of his plates. Then Pau Vadell and Jaume C. Pons Alorda recite poems and we toast with Blai Bonet wine from the Son Alegre vineyards. In the audience, Perejaume listens carefully.
We then go to the Sala Cultural, a five-minute walk accompanied by the director of the foundation, Anna Maluquer, and the director of the festival, Eduard Escoffet. The show Anatomia d’un desig, by Fèlix Pons, with Melisa Fernández, Marc Tarrida and Jordi Busquets, based on the life of Picasso and Dora Maar, takes place there.
In the evening, in the Can Muntanyà park, above the foundation, a double and intense program. To start, Blanca Haddad and the Blood Quartet (Kike Bela, Lluís Rueda, Adri Cubells and the legendary Mark Cunningham) with an intense and paroxysmal recital, with Haddad in a trance reciting, shouting and dancing with his mobile phone in hand playing and criticizing the technological dependence between real selfie and fake selfie.
In dialogue and contrast, to close the night, Xavi Lloses and Josep Pedrals celebrating the latter’s 25 years dedicating himself to poetry. 25 and , in fact. With a devoted audience, among whom there were Pep Blay, Míriam Reyes, Maria Escalas, Toni Mañach, Ester Andorrà and Ignasi Pàmies.
Pedrals remembered his beginnings as a poet already in the schoolyard, and built a cabaret anthology and ensida – de Sisa -, reciting, singing, playing the clarinet, making his audience laugh by talking about Luca M. Rota, Quim Porta and Anna Tirant – read these names again – and proving that yes, poetry is useful for living, even when the playground is over.
