La feria del libro de Madrid

Most town and cities in Spain hold some kind of book fair, but in Madrid it's a very special annual open-air event that attracts visitors from all over the country. What's more, the venue is terrific: the Retiro park, a gorgeous focal point in the centre of the city.

All along the wide avenues of the park, Spain's publishers - both indie and mainstream - set up their stalls. Every genre imaginable seems to have a niche, and kids are a key focus. Moreover, the fair has a dual role - there's a significant trade element, but direct sales to the general public are its driving force. Publishers reach out to readers: dozens of authors can be seen signing books and giving readings on a daily basis, all alongside classical music concerts and children's shows, etc.

And what about our own visit last Sunday? First of all, it was extremely hot! However, that didn't stop the crowds: thousands of people, especially families, had headed for the fair. There was a terrific atmosphere and my son had a great time choosing his books. He was so excited he even devoured one alongside his calamari at lunch. That's a great example of how this type of event can hook new readers. As for myself, I was lucky enough to meet Luis García Montero for the first time and even manage a brief chat!

Could we develop a similar event in the U.K.? Huge commitment would be required from the publishing world, but a legacy would be guaranteed. It was incredible to see so many people simply enjoying books last Sunday!

Cashing in...poetry prizes in Spain

I've previously mentioned that a vast amount of poetry funding in Spain gets pushed into prizes that are run by local councils, building societies, regional governments, charities, etc. Instead of backing local groups, events and magazines, organisations tend to crave the publicity of handing out a prize that's worth a lot of cash.

The following is just a small sample of the poetry prizes that are on offer in Spain, together with their first prizes. Bear in mind that these are generally for full collections rather than single poems. I've compiled this list over the last hour via the internet, only including first prizes of 5,000€ or more, but I could have gone on all night and not reached the end! What's more, it's based on the most recent available info - austerity is even biting in these circles to a limited extent and thus affecting funding.

This list just goes to show how deeply the culture of prize-winning is engrained in Spanish poetic culture - if you don't win a prize, your manuscript is liable not to see the light of day. With a deep breath, here goes:

Premio Miguel Hernández-Comunidad Valenciana12,000€

Premio Rubén Darío de Poesía en Castellano, 18,000€
Premio Emilio Alarcos de Poesía, 7,000€
Premio Internacional de Poesía Claudio Rodríguez, 6,000€
Premio Ciudad de Cáceres, 6,000 €
Premio Nacional de Poesía Joven “Félix Grande” 6,000€
Premio de Poesía Federico García Lorca, 30,000€
Premio "Antonio Machado en Baeza", 6,000€
Premio Unicaja de Poesía, 7,000€
Premio 'José Hierro' de Poesía, 15,000€
Premio de Poesía Manuel Alcántara 6,000€
Premio de Poesía Ciudad de Pamplona 5,000€
Premio de Poesía Ciudad de Irún, 15,000€
Premio Internacional de Poesía Odón Betanzos, 6,000€
Premio Iberoamericano de Poesía "Hermanos Machado", 8,000€
Premio de Poesía Blas de Otero, 8,000€
Premio de Poesía Rafael Morales, 12,000€
Certamen de Poesía Villa de Aoiz, 6,000€
Premio Unicaja de Poesía, 10,000€
Premio de poesía Ricardo Molina, 12,000€
Premio Internacional de Poesía Generación del 27, 20,000€
Premio internacional de poesía Jaime Gil de Biedma,10,000€
Premio de Poesía Juan Ramón Jiménez,12,000€
Premio de Poesía de la Fundación Ecoem 6,000€
Premio de Poesía Mérida, 9,000€
Premio Nacional Poesía Joven “Miguel Hernández” 20,000€
Premio Loewe de Poesía, 20,000€
Premio Ciudad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 6,000€
Premio Emilio Alarcos de poesía,18,000€
Premio Internacional de Poesía “Hermanos Argensola”, 6,000€
Premio de Poesía Antonio Gala, 9,000€
Certamen Internacional de Poesía Ciudad de Torrevieja, 18,000€
Premio 'Ciudad de Salamanca' de Poesía,9,000€
Premio de Poesía Ciudad de Córdoba "Ricardo Molina",12,000€
Premio de Poesía en Castellano “Vicente Gaos”, 6,000€

As mentioned above, this is just a partial snapshot - there are far more out there. Now that's a lot of money that could have been used in so many other ways!

Review: La Cuadratura del Plato, by Mónica Doña

I do feel I have to start the review of this excellent collection, titled La Cuadratura del Plato (El Páramo, 2011), with a spot of background information that should serve as a practical illustration of the points I made in my post a couple of weeks ago about poetry funding in Spain, all this without wanting to knock the book in question in any way.

Mónica Doña's manuscript won Córdoba County Council's annual poetry prize, for which she was awarded 6000€ of public money. This is far from being one of the largest prize funds in Iberia. Her book was then (eventually) published by the officially backed regional publishing house with beautiful production values and not a price to be seen on it. In other words, there's no real target commercial audience at all or any promotional marketing.

There are definitely better ways of using public funding to support poetry and help it reach more people. However, in this case I'm delighted that at least the cash has given Mónica Doña's poetry a chance to find a readership. I was drawn to Doña's work because it refuses to be pigeonholed into typical Spanish "schools". What's more, she approaches life so as to understand it, rather than being drawn into esoteric codes. The first section in the book, titled Objetos, draws on everyday items, concentrating on their implicit emotional content, as in Navaja:

"Corta el hombre su pan a rebanadas
y luego las reparte.
Rebanadas de pan, todas iguales.
El hombre y su navaja
saben medir el hambre."

"The man cuts his bread into slices
and then hands them out.
Slices of bread, all the same.
The man and his knife
can measure hunger."

The second section of the book, meanwhile, titled La Cuadratura del Plato, is charged with the bottled-up emotion of a repressed childhood in Francoist Spain, homing in on the humdrum once more in order to accentuate its impact. Doña evokes a double life: the social containts of the family are contrasted with the world of her imagination, ending up in a reconciliation of the two selves in adulthood:

"Se cuadra ante la luna del armario
y le dice a su doble:
No te duermas, hermana,
que otra vez empezamos desde cero."

She squares up to the mirror on the wardrobe
and says to her double:
"Don't fall asleep, sister,
we're starting again from scratch.""

The collection's third and final section, Cine en Casa, moves on to the difficulties of adult life and offers us cinematographic vignettes of troubled contemporary family relationships (more troubles!). Despite the delicate nature of her material, Dona actually manages to bring a wry smile to this reader's lips on a regular basis, as in Dígaselo con Flores (Say it with Flowers):

"...encargaste en la tienda de flores
dos decenas de rosas.
Como si fueran huevos
para nutrir desprisa a una familia
desganada y perpleja..."

"...you ordered at the florist's
two dozen roses.
As if they were eggs
to nourish a family
that's off its food and perplexed..."

The aesthetics of this verse might not seem so unexpected to a British reader. Nevertheless, they are unusual in the context of contemporary Spanish poetry. Mónica Doña's La Cuadratura del Plato is fierecly ambitious without feeling the need for obstrusive posturing. It's been a pleasant surprise for me and I applaud it.

Writing in Spanish

Blogging's had to take a back seat to life these past few weeks, as work and family drove me through December and the festivities.

However, I'm now back home and refreshed enough to play with new challenges. A number of Spanish friends have been urging me for years to write in Spanish, discussions of my poetry being limited by their poor knowledge of English. This has led me to write a few Spanish versions (never translations) of my poems over the last few days. Just for fun. But with the wonderful consequence of viewing the originals afresh through the filter of a new sociolinguistic perspective.

I don't think I'll be publishing my work in Spanish anywhere soon. Apart from anything else, its poetics would be sniffed at by most on the Iberian peninsula. Nevertheless, I've encountered a game that I'm going to keep playing, letting reflections bounce back and forth, seeing how I can then enrich the originals.

Jaime Gil de Biedma

"I dress and drink like an Englishman".

This quote is from Jaime Gil de Biedma, a key figure in 20th Century Spanish poetry. It hints at many of the paradoxes and layers to be found in his character. An upper-class Marxist who had to hide his bisexuality in Francoist Spain, his writing is often labelled "Poesía de la Experiencia". In fact, Gil de Biedma's poems play with the notion of experience and identity, drawing on the hypocrisy that necessarily formed part of his life.

Gil de Biedma's wealthy family enabled him to travel widely. He spoke excellent English and spent time in the U.K., where he read avidly and came under the influence of Auden's poetry. It's important to bear in mind that Gil de Biedma has been a crucial point of reference for many contemporary Spanish poets, so he has also been one of the few conduits between the two countries' poetic aesthetics. Just as many Latin words come to English through French, so I would argue that certain momentary nods towards Auden in Garcia Montero often reach us through Gil de Biedma.

His life and work are currently in the media spotlight over here in Spain, as a controversial biopic has just come out, titled "El Cónsul de Sodoma". Beyond the arguments about its veracity or focus on sexual escapades, I just hope it generates more readers for Jaime Gil de Biedma. Here's a terrific example of his own self-awareness from his poem "Después de la muerte de Jaime Gil de Biedma", "After Jaime Gil de Biedma's Death", in which he addresses his other self and ends with these lines...

"Aunque acaso fui yo quien te enseñó.
Quien te enseñó a vengarte de mis sueños,
por cobardía, corrompiéndolos."

"Although it might have been me who taught you.
Who taught you to take revenge on my dreams,
out of cowardice, corrupting them."

Emergency Kit

I buy poetry books as and when I can - my budget doesn't allow for anything else - and I tend to avoid anthologies in favour of getting to grips with individual poets. However, Emergency Kit for a quid at a local charity shop was too tempting this Christmas.

I've got many quibbles with it, starting with the premise that the 20th Century was an especially strange time. Well, the 17th/18th/19th Centuries weren't exactly straightforward or exempt from huge changes, revolutions, genocide, etc, either. The editors' claim that Borges was a magical realist, meanwhile, is a leap too far for my understanding of the term. As for the poetry itself, it seems selected to fit into a specific identikit vision of the genre.

Nevertheless, I do feel that the most intriguing part of the anthology is its introduction, where the editors (Matthew Sweeney and Jo Shapcott) justify their work. Above all, my interest in the comparative qualities of English-language and Spanish poetry means that I was immediately drawn to the following statement:

"...however far and freely (the poems) travel, they always come back to the world we wake up to, illuminating, from whatever angle, our day-to-day concerns. Other poems in the bookmay be more ostensibly realist in manner...but even here there is always the glint of...the surrealism of everyday life".

In other words, the poetic aesthetic of Emergency Kit is rooted in daily life - any steps back from this world are taken so as then to come back to it with fresh eyes. This is a pretty big anthology - almost 300 pages of poems - so my question is the following: could such an extensive anthology have been compiled of contemporary Spanish poetry with this same aesthetic?

I don't believe so. What's more, the editors' stance doesn't seem particularly controversial in terms of a vast chunk of current English-language poetry, whereas my experience tells me of the row that would brew if I backed such a statement when surrounded by most Spanish poets! All in all, an excellent example of the divide between the two languages' poetries.

Antonio Gamoneda and British readers

Antonio Gamoneda is renowned is Spain as one of the country's best living poets. Now an elderly man, he worked for many years as a bank clerk, writing without recognition. This was until the publication of his selected poems, Edad, which won the National Poetry Prize. Later collections, such as Libro del Frío, were extremely well received by critics. Gamoneda's found awards raining down on him over the last few years, topped off by the Premio Cervantes, a Hispanic version of the Nobel Prize.

In other words, we're dealing with a key figure here. So why isn't his work available to U.K. readers? Well, I recall attending a reading with him a few years ago in Zafra, when I also had the chance to enjoy a few tapas with the man himself afterwards. It was a wonderful reading and a great night. Gamoneda took the audience by the scruff of its neck and entranced everyone. One of my main memories of the event is the shine in so many of my Spanish friends' eyes as they listened. I too was captivated, but perhaps never more aware of the gulf between U.K. and Spanish poetic aesthetics. I sat there thinking how terrific Gamoneda was and how absurd he would sound to most of my British friends.

In a recent thread over a Poets On Fire, Tony Frazer (the excellent editor at Shearsman) specifically remarked how disappointed he'd been by Gamoneda when at a reading a oouple of years ago. Here's a link to Gamoneda on You Tube for you to see what we mean!



I've had numerous discussions recently about the difficulties that are inherently involved in translating Spanish poetry for U.K. readers, and I feel Gamoneda is one of the best examples of the problem. Superb in Spanish, he's slightly ridiculous in U.K. English.

Ángel Campos Pámpano

Ángel Campos Pámpano, who died almost a year ago, was best known on the international literary stage as an excellent translator of Portuguese poets into Spanish, especially of Pessoa, but his own poetry is also extremely interesting in its own right.

I remember meeting Ángel on many occasions over the years at readings both in Zafra and Badajoz. He loved the cut and thrust of poetic debate, and I'll always remember the look of exhilaration on his face as we left a reading by José Ángel Valente, one of his favourite poets.

Just before his death from cancer at the age of fifty-one, Ángel Campos Pámpano had the chance to see a copy of his collected poems, La vida de otro modo (Calambur, 2008), and it's a book that I've been enjoying ever since. There are poetic echoes of Jorge Guillén and César Vallejo, both infused with the emotional landscape of Lisbon and Extremadura, but I feel his poems about his mother stand out. They seem to me to be in constant dialogue with Antonio Gamoneda. The latter had always shared many aspects of his poetic aesthetics with Ángel, but in certain poems this key maternal theme coincides and resonates:

"sabrás que lo que queda
es tan solo una ausencia compartida..."

"you'll know that what remains
is only a shared absence.."

These words could also be applied to the many friends and colleagues who still mourn him. A poet who's still with us through his work, Ángel organised numerous readings in Badajoz. Thanks to his efforts, many of us had the chance to see some of Spain's top talents down here in deepest Extremadura. Now it's our turn to keep his talent alive.

José Agustín Goytisolo

The Goytisolo brothers have been key figures on the Spanish literary scene these last fifty years. Luis and Juan are best known as novelists, while José Agustín mainly concentrated on poetry (he died in 1999 after falling from the balcony of his flat).

José Agustín Goytisolo cut an unusual figure on the Spanish literary scene. A Catalan who wrote in Spanish, his poetry unashamedly sits on the boundary betweeen popular and populist. Politically aware, often veering from irony to lyricism, before stopping off at sarcasm and ending up at love, his poems still achieve a unity of voice that shows just how unique he was.

I once attended one of his readings in Zafra. His schedule involved a workshop in the morning with local schoolchildren, followed by a reading for adults in the evening. The problem was the extremely liquid lunch that took place in between both events. Suffice to say, he put on quite a show that night!

Continuing with my theme of the close relationship between poetry and music that so many people sniff at in the U.K., here's one of the most famous examples of this fusion, a renowned version (in Spain, at least) by Paco Ibañez of one of Goytisolo's most famous poems, Palabras Para Julia, dedicated to his daughter but with a nod towards his mother, who died in a Francoist bombing raid during the Civil War:



One of the best qualities of this track is its wonderful intrinsic value as a piece of music. At the same time, however, Ibañez manages to capture and reinterpret the original poem, giving the verse a new life.

Luis Garcia Montero, traditions that converge

Luis Garcia Montero is a terrific poet and a real force in contemporary Spanish poetry.

One of the most accessible poets to be writing in Spain, his work fuses the Generacion del 27, e.g. Salinas, Lorca, Cernuda, with the influence of Jaime Gil de Biedma. This means his realist poetry is also unafraid of the lyric and the esoteric. Politics, meanwhile, play a key role in his work: Garcia Montero forms part of a generation who lived through Spain's intense transition to democracy while they were students.

The above-mentioned combination brings about a poetry that captivates, drawing the reader in, working at umpteen levels. Gacria Montero might have brought together something of a group around him in Granada (poets such as Javier Egea and Alvaro Salvador), but there isn't a school as such - his voice is inimitable. I do enjoy his erotic work and political pieces, but perhaps he's at his best when writing about his daughter, Irene, as in the following snippet:

"contigo
cobran todas las cosas
un impreciso afan por empezar de nuevo"

"with you
everything takes on
an imprecise urge to begin again"

Garcia Montero is unusual among the current crop of Spanish poets. I do feel he deserves further exposure to a U.K. readership, although the translation would have to be extremely nuanced so as to preserve the converging of traditions that textures his work.

Lyrics as poetry and poetry as lyrics

Many U.K. poets seem to take it as read that lyrics aren't poems and poems aren't lyrics. They dig their heels in over this distinction.

Such an argument would appear ridiculous in Spain, where songwriters publish collections of poetry and set many poems to music. A simple search of major Spanish poets on YouTube offers up many gems (especially Lorca and Alberti, etc), but perhaps my favourite is this one:



Luis Garcia Montero's poem led to Quique Gonzalez's song. Here are both of them, feeding off each other, lyrics as poetry and poetry as lyrics.

I feel decent singer-songwriters are marginalised in the U.K., while mainstream lyrics do tend to be trite, factors which lead to a belief that the two genres are somehow separate. In fact, the tools of both trades are shared: for example, Lennon and McCartney knew and used their metrics well, as do many contemporary writers for major groups. The main problem is the colossal dumbing down of popular music in Britain, blinding so many poets to the terrific collaborative possibilites that exist.

Spanish poetry in translation

Over at the Poets on Fire forum, there's currently an unusual thread about the difficulties that are involved in translating Spanish poetry for a U.K. readership.

My own view of translating poetry is perhaps best summed up by my last post on the subject.

Jordi Virallonga, exceptional in every sense

Jordi Virallonga is from Catalunya and lives there, yet writes much of his work in Spanish. In the current socio-linguistic climate, this is exceptional in itself. However, Virallonga is also exceptional for the poetry he writes.

The Spanish poetry scene often seems to get tied up in knots about whether poetry should approach life in order to understand it or take an esoteric step away. Nevertheless, the most outstanding Spanish poets of recent years have risen above this navel-gazing, tending not to fit into the "Generations" and "Schools" that are so beloved of their contemporaries. Jordi Virallonga is one such poet.

Of all his collections, my favourite by far is Crónicas de Usura, published in 1999. It's an elegaic book, not a sequence but a series of interweaving poems that also work excellently as stand-alone pieces. Urban surroundings, metaphysics, everyday events and brilliant lists all work together as Virallonga seeks to express what none of us can. Many Spanish poets and critics would classify and separate each of these features as belonging to one "School" or another. In this case, the poet is brave enough to juxtapose them, using them as and when he needs them as poetic resources. Self-limitation is not for Virallonga.

What's more, he's not shy of brilliant turns of phrase. Not flashy, just providing a new way of viewing something familiar:

"una historia doblada como un avión de papel"..."a story folded like a paper plane"

Jordi Virallonga is exceptional in 21st century Spanish poetry - few other current Spanish poets have shaken off the critical shackles that their contemporaries seem to use as security blankets. I thoroughly recommend his work, above all Crónicas de Usura, an outstanding blend of transatlantic and Spanish influences that fuses into an original voice.

Songwriters and poets

Songwriters who are poets, poets who are songwriters...

...beyond the debate as to whether lyrics are poems or poems are lyrics, comes another issue: many countries boast prominent songwriters who are also well-known as poets, but not the U.K..

Several examples spring to mind in the U.S., while Spain has a long tradition of writers working in both genres. Among the most famous current crop is Joaquín Sabina - he publishes poetry which has been admired by figures such as Angel González, while also selling out concerts. Apart from the fact he's from my wife's lovely home town of Ubeda, I also feel an affinity with his deft word-play, social commentary and narrative drive, as in the song below:



Does U.K. poetry look down on songwriters? Do we force a distinction on artists (i.e. you're either a poet or a songwriter)? I'm convinced not only that both are compatible, but that they can feed off each other and enrich both the writer and reader/listener.

Black Pudding and Angel Gonzalez

Contemporary Spanish poetry often appears to live very much in the shadow of its immediate predecessors in many senses, none more so than in the way critics and poets themselves constantly pigeonhole work in a “school” or “movement”. There seems to be some sort of belief than this is the only way to emulate the 98 Generation (1898) or 27 Generation (1927) in their originality.

The idiosyncrasy of Angel Gonzalez, a poet from Asturias in northern Spain, stands out even more in this context. His death last year drew a definitive line under my vain and vague hope that I might one day attend a reading by him. This hope had always been kept on hold by his exile in Alburquerque, New Mexico, where he’d taught and then retired, meaning that readings in Spain became few and far between.

Gonzalez fought against being pigeonholed throughout his poetic life, realising that the battle lines drawn up by others were in fact limits instead of marks of identity. His work varies greatly in metrics, aesthetics and semantics, from pithy pieces that provide tremendous poetic sound bites to lengthy humanistic landscapes. I have to admit that I fell in love with the former, as few other contemporary Spanish poets hit the spot as concisely as Angel Gonzalez. Here’s a renowned extract from Glosas a Heraclito, a great example of how to grab the beat-up old myth kitty by its short and curlies…

Nada es lo mismo, nada
permanece.
Menos
la Historia y la morcilla de mi tierra:

se hacen las dos con sangre, se repiten.

An impossible translation might fail along these lines…

Nothing’s the same, nothing
remains.
Except
History and my homeland’s black pudding:

both are made from blood, both repeat.


Great (and brave) stuff when you bear in mind that this poem was written in the context of the Civil War and its aftermath.