Wild Creature

by Joan Margarit, Anna Crowe (Translator)

Overview

A solitary, Joan 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.

Joan Margarit is one of Spain’s major modern writers. Born in 1938, he worked as an architect and first published his work in Spanish, but for the past four decades has become known for his mastery of the Catalan language, and is now, arguably, Spain’s most widely acclaimed contemporary poet. The melancholy and candour of his poetry show his affinity with Thomas Hardy, whose work he has translated.

Wild Creature brings together the poems of Joan Margarit's final two collections, Un hivern fascinant (An amazing winter, 2017) and Animal de bosc (Wild creature, 2020). The two books that make up this new 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. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781780375922
Publisher:	Bloodaxe Books
Publication date:	04/12/2022
Pages:	136
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Joan Margarit was born in 1938 in Sanaüja, La Segarra region, in Catalonia. He is an architect, 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 Gaudí’s Sagrada Família 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 has published Spanish versions of all his work, and over the past 20 years has gained recognition as a leading poet in Spanish. 

In 2008 he received the Premio Nacional de Poesía del Estado Español for his collection Casa de Misericòrdia, 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 Víctor Sandoval for all his poetry. He was awarded the 2019 Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world's highest literary honour, worth €125,000, 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 Albéniz 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 Sofía 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 first English translation of his Catalan poetry, was a Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation. Strangely Happy, a selection of later poems from Casa de Misericòrdia (2007) and Misteriosament feliç (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 difícil (It Wasn’t Far Away or Difficult, 2010), Es perd el senyal (The Signal Is Fading, 2012) and Estimar és un lloc (From Where to Begin to Love Again, 2014). His forthcoming 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).

Table of Contents

An Amazing Winter (2017)

An amazing winter 12

Atocha Hill 13

The mysterious island 14

Works of love 15

Woman about to do her hands 16

Building a destiny 17

Verdaguer 18

Familiarities 19

Goyescas 20

On insults 21

Memory's punishment 22

North wind 23

Our time 24

Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? 25

All-in wrestling 26

Stroke 27

Future 28

The albatross 29

Road 30

Through pain 31

What enlightens me 32

More than a song 33

Thermopylae 34

Life 35

Golden Age 36

Rides 37

Photograph of a girl 38

De senectute 39

Jorge Manrique 40

If you read this book 41

Time's lyric 42

Courage 43

Final performances 44

Known cruelty 45

Purposes 46

Behind the glass 47

Instants 48

Mythology 49

The solitude of the sea 50

No other beginning 51

Epilogue to An amazing winter 53

Wild Creature (2020)

The two snowfalls 58

The kitchen 59

Museums 60

Silent woman 61

Angel Gonzalez, a memory 62

Don't talk about this with anybody 63

From poverty 64

Clear and difficult 65

Seductions, after so much time 66

Lost village 67

Wild creature 68

Beloved time with her 69

Iliad 70

Note on truth 71

Silence and survival 72

First lesson 73

Orpheus 74

The calm of coming back 75

The poem and the wall 76

The depths of poverty 77

Morning in Sant Just 78

Family lunch 79

A simple farewell 80

The final intimacy 81

The beginning of everything 82

Protections, consolations 83

Rachid Boujedra 84

Faraway smiles 85

Seagulls 86

A price 87

Chamber music 88

Love and fear 89

The long ending 90

In the early morning 91

What is approaching? 92

The picture of Santes Creus monastery 93

Autumn in Elizondo 94

Final pause 95

Murmur of rain 96

The house 97

Consolations 98

Building 99

Nightfall for old lovers 100

The only loyalty 101

Coming out of a concert 102

Dark Night of the Soul 103

Deep paradox 104

Two encounters 105

A poignant indifference 106

Everything is going quiet 107

Mistakes and sewers 108

Inspiration 109

Gratitude 110

Reasons and ways 111

Betrayal is no longer possible 112

Walking through a forest at night 113

A joyous prudence 114

Building work 115

Under a deep blue sky 116

Sick old man 117

About Babel 118

Josep Maria Subirachs 119

A daughter 120

Vincent Van Gogh 121

With you 122

The forgotten dream 123

Attempt at conclusions 124

Courtyard song 125

The past, so difficult at times 126

Another happy world 127

You, me and music 128

Memory of a field 129

Fear of what we are 130

Our dead, Raquel 131

One winter morning, 2020 132

The highest mountain 133

Epilogue 135

Editorial Reviews

'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.'

The Herald, Books of the Year - Stewart Conn [on Love Is a Place]

‘Joan Margarit is one of the great poets of his generation, and is venerated not only in his home region of Catalonia, but also everywhere else in Spain… These pages are filled with love, music, nature and numerous sources of light.  Love Is a Place was one of the best collections of translated poems I read last year.’

The Poetry Review - Trevor Barnett

"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

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.'

Guardian.com (Poem of the Week) - Carol Rumens

"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]

Sharon Olds