Wild Creature
Published on 11. November 2021
Book
Paperback/Softback
136 pages
978-1-78037-592-2 (ISBN)
Description
Joan Margarit (1938-2021) was one of Spain's major modern writers. He worked as an architect and first published his work in Spanish, but over the past four decades became known for his mastery of the Catalan language, and was Spain's most widely acclaimed contemporary poet. The melancholy and candour of his poetry show his affinity with Thomas Hardy, whose work he translated. He was awarded both the 2019 Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world's highest literary honour, and the Reina Sofia Prize for Ibero-American Poetry 2019, the most important poetry award for Spain, Portugal and Latin America.
In the much praised Tugs in the Fog: Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2006), Joan Margarit evoked the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath, the harshness of life in Barcelona under Franco, and grief at the death of a beloved handicapped daughter, reminding us that it is not death we have to understand but life. Five of his later collections were translated by Anna Crowe and published by Bloodaxe in two compilations, Strangely Happy (2011) and Love Is a Place (2016). Wild Creature brings together the poems of his final two collections, Un hivern fascinant (An amazing winter, 2017) and Animal de bosc (Wild creature, 2020).
The two books that make up this final collection in English show us a poet writing at the end of his life, and facing up to his approaching death with courage, humility and even humour. Confronting loss is one of Margarit's enduring themes, and many of these poems do just that but - continuing the theme of his previous collection, Love Is a Place - there are even more that celebrate love and everyday domesticity, and he reminds us that love needs to be worked at. These are poems that arise naturally out of an examined life, and although he does not spare himself or the folly of our times, there is great tenderness in the way he reaches out to embrace life, love, and the pain of the past. A solitary, Margarit pays tribute to other writers and artists of that ilk, to the rural poverty of his childhood, and to the wild creature deep in each one of us whom we ignore at our peril.
In the much praised Tugs in the Fog: Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2006), Joan Margarit evoked the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath, the harshness of life in Barcelona under Franco, and grief at the death of a beloved handicapped daughter, reminding us that it is not death we have to understand but life. Five of his later collections were translated by Anna Crowe and published by Bloodaxe in two compilations, Strangely Happy (2011) and Love Is a Place (2016). Wild Creature brings together the poems of his final two collections, Un hivern fascinant (An amazing winter, 2017) and Animal de bosc (Wild creature, 2020).
The two books that make up this final collection in English show us a poet writing at the end of his life, and facing up to his approaching death with courage, humility and even humour. Confronting loss is one of Margarit's enduring themes, and many of these poems do just that but - continuing the theme of his previous collection, Love Is a Place - there are even more that celebrate love and everyday domesticity, and he reminds us that love needs to be worked at. These are poems that arise naturally out of an examined life, and although he does not spare himself or the folly of our times, there is great tenderness in the way he reaches out to embrace life, love, and the pain of the past. A solitary, Margarit pays tribute to other writers and artists of that ilk, to the rural poverty of his childhood, and to the wild creature deep in each one of us whom we ignore at our peril.
Reviews / Votes
I love these poems for many reasons. When I first read Joan Margarit, I heard a powerfully distinctive voice, a spirit of great freedom and energy, humaneness, mischief, and depth. In these naked, subtle, clear poems, surprise and wisdom are often right next to each other... Each of Margarit's poems is its own being, like a living creature with its own body-shape and voice, its own breath and heart-beat. His poems live and breathe in their natural habitat. They are elegant and shapely. And sometimes they seem almost overheard, as if they are singing in the voice the mind uses when talking with itself or with its close close other. It is common enough speech, and it is brilliant, too, sensually beautiful (but not too beautiful) and with a genuine, just-conceived feeling. -- Sharon Olds * on Love Is a Place * His work is time-haunted and death-haunted, but the poems also have a wonderful, clear, intelligent light in them. Margarit is perhaps firstly a love poet, and, readers can be assured, his loves are more often flesh and blood than steel. -- Carol Rumens * Guardian.com (Poem of the Week) * He deploys his central themes - the prospect of death and rediscovery of love - with a compelling freshness, wisdom, dignity and enveloping tenderness. Time and again I find myself gasping in admiration, or fighting back tears. And the cover image must be one of the most beautiful of the year. -- Stewart Conn * The Herald (Books of the Year) *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Tyne and Wear
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 138 mm
Width: 214 mm
Thickness: 12 mm
Weight
212 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78037-592-2 (9781780375922)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
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Persons
Joan Margarit (1938-2021) was born in Sanaueja, La Segarra region, in Catalonia. He was an architect as well as a poet, and from 1968 until his retirement was also Professor of Structural Calculations at Barcelona's Technical School of Architecture, working for part of that time on Gaudi's Sagrada Familia cathedral. He first published poetry in Spanish, but after four books decided to write in Catalan. From 1980 he began to establish his reputation as a major Catalan poet. As well as publishing many collections in Catalan, he published Spanish versions of all his work, gaining recognition as a leading poet in Spanish. In 2008 he received the Premio Nacional de Poesia del Estado Espanol for his collection Casa de Misericordia, as well as the Premi Nacional de Literatura de la Generalitat de Catalunya. In 2013 he was awarded Mexico's Premio de Poetas del Mundo Latino Victor Sandoval for all his poetry. He was awarded the 2019 Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world's highest literary honour, worth EUR125,000, which generally alternates between Spanish and Latin American writers. He received this from King Felipe VI of Spain at a special ceremony at Barcelona's Palauet Albeniz in December 2020, the presentation being delayed by the coronavirus pandemic: the award is usually presented every April at an event in Madrid on the anniversary of the death in 1616 of Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote. He also received the Reina Sofia Prize for Ibero-American Poetry 2019, the most important poetry award for Spain, Portugal and Latin America. Tugs in the Fog: Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2006), translated by Anna Crowe, the ?rst English translation of his Catalan poetry, was a Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation. Strangely Happy, a selection of later poems from Casa de Misericordia (2007) and Misteriosament felic (2008), also translated by Anna Crowe, was published by Bloodaxe in 2011. A third translation by Anna Crowe, Love Is a Place (Bloodaxe Books, 2016) includes all the poems from three recent Catalan collections: No era lluny ni dificil (It Wasn't Far Away or Difficult, 2010), Es perd el senyal (The Signal Is Fading, 2012) and Estimar es un lloc (From Where to Begin to Love Again, 2014). His final collection Wild Creature (Bloodaxe Books, 2021), also translated by Anna Crowe, brings together poems from his two latest collections, Un hivern fascinant (An amazing winter, 2017) and Animal de bosc (Wild creature, 2020).
Content
AN AMAZING WINTER (2017)
12 An amazing winter
13 Atocha Hill
14 The mysterious island
15 Works of love
16 Woman about to do her hands
17 Building a destiny
18 Verdaguer
19 Familiarities
20 Goyescas
21 On insults
22 Memory's punishment
23 North wind
24 Our time
25 Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?
26 All-in wrestling
27 Stroke
28 Future
29 The albatross
30 Road
31 Through pain
32 What enlightens me
33 More than a song
34 Thermopylae
35 Life
36 Golden Age
37 Rides
38 Photograph of a girl
39 De senectute
40 Jorge Manrique
41 If you read this book
42 Time's lyric
43 Courage
44 Final performances
45 Known cruelty
46 Purposes
47 Behind the glass
48 Instants
49 Mythology
50 The solitude of the sea
51 No other beginning
53 Epilogue to An amazing winter
WILD CREATURE (2020)
58 The two snowfalls
59 The kitchen
60 Museums
61 Silent woman
62 Angel Gonzalez, a memory
63 Don't talk about this with anybody
64 From poverty
65 Clear and dif?cult
66 Seductions, after so much time
67 Lost village
68 Wild creature
69 Beloved time with her
70 Iliad
71 Note on truth
72 Silence and survival
73 First lesson
74 Orpheus
75 The calm of coming back
76 The poem and the wall
77 The depths of poverty
78 Morning in Sant Just
79 Family lunch
80 A simple farewell
81 The ?nal intimacy
82 The beginning of everything
83 Protections, consolations
84 Rachid Boujedra
85 Faraway smiles
86 Seagulls
87 A price
88 Chamber music
89 Love and fear
90 The long ending
91 In the early morning
92 What is approaching?
93 The picture of Santes Creus monastery
94 Autumn in Elizondo
95 Final pause
96 Murmur of rain
97 The house
98 Consolations
99 Building
100 Nightfall for old lovers
101 The only loyalty
102 Coming out of a concert
103 Dark Night of the Soul
104 Deep paradox
105 Two encounters
106 A poignant indifference
107 Everything is going quiet
108 Mistakes and sewers
109 Inspiration
110 Gratitude
111 Reasons and ways
112 Betrayal is no longer possible
113 Walking through a forest at night
114 A joyous prudence
115 Building work
116 Under a deep blue sky
117 Sick old man
118 About Babel
119 Josep Maria Subirachs
120 A daughter
121 Vincent Van Gogh
122 With you
123 The forgotten dream
124 Attempt at conclusions
125 Courtyard song
126 The past, so dif?cult at times
127 Another happy world
128 You, me and music
129 Memory of a ?eld
130 Fear of what we are
131 Our dead, Raquel
132 One winter morning, 2020
133 The highest mountain
135 Epilogue
12 An amazing winter
13 Atocha Hill
14 The mysterious island
15 Works of love
16 Woman about to do her hands
17 Building a destiny
18 Verdaguer
19 Familiarities
20 Goyescas
21 On insults
22 Memory's punishment
23 North wind
24 Our time
25 Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?
26 All-in wrestling
27 Stroke
28 Future
29 The albatross
30 Road
31 Through pain
32 What enlightens me
33 More than a song
34 Thermopylae
35 Life
36 Golden Age
37 Rides
38 Photograph of a girl
39 De senectute
40 Jorge Manrique
41 If you read this book
42 Time's lyric
43 Courage
44 Final performances
45 Known cruelty
46 Purposes
47 Behind the glass
48 Instants
49 Mythology
50 The solitude of the sea
51 No other beginning
53 Epilogue to An amazing winter
WILD CREATURE (2020)
58 The two snowfalls
59 The kitchen
60 Museums
61 Silent woman
62 Angel Gonzalez, a memory
63 Don't talk about this with anybody
64 From poverty
65 Clear and dif?cult
66 Seductions, after so much time
67 Lost village
68 Wild creature
69 Beloved time with her
70 Iliad
71 Note on truth
72 Silence and survival
73 First lesson
74 Orpheus
75 The calm of coming back
76 The poem and the wall
77 The depths of poverty
78 Morning in Sant Just
79 Family lunch
80 A simple farewell
81 The ?nal intimacy
82 The beginning of everything
83 Protections, consolations
84 Rachid Boujedra
85 Faraway smiles
86 Seagulls
87 A price
88 Chamber music
89 Love and fear
90 The long ending
91 In the early morning
92 What is approaching?
93 The picture of Santes Creus monastery
94 Autumn in Elizondo
95 Final pause
96 Murmur of rain
97 The house
98 Consolations
99 Building
100 Nightfall for old lovers
101 The only loyalty
102 Coming out of a concert
103 Dark Night of the Soul
104 Deep paradox
105 Two encounters
106 A poignant indifference
107 Everything is going quiet
108 Mistakes and sewers
109 Inspiration
110 Gratitude
111 Reasons and ways
112 Betrayal is no longer possible
113 Walking through a forest at night
114 A joyous prudence
115 Building work
116 Under a deep blue sky
117 Sick old man
118 About Babel
119 Josep Maria Subirachs
120 A daughter
121 Vincent Van Gogh
122 With you
123 The forgotten dream
124 Attempt at conclusions
125 Courtyard song
126 The past, so dif?cult at times
127 Another happy world
128 You, me and music
129 Memory of a ?eld
130 Fear of what we are
131 Our dead, Raquel
132 One winter morning, 2020
133 The highest mountain
135 Epilogue