Wild Creature

Joan Margarit, Anna Crowe

• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781780375922
• eBook ISBN: 9781780375939
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Poetry
• Index: Literature

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 Sofía 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.

57

Wild creature

(2020)

58

The two snowfalls

Seeing so much snow falling everywhere,

you and I have remembered, without leaving the house,

the snow in which we found our love.

We hadn’t known each other very long

and we spent that day until well into the small hours

walking through streets lit-up

by a warm light that was white and cold.

We discovered a new intimacy

as yet unknown to both of us.

Your gloved hand in mine

had begun to save my life.

Shining and dark, sixty years have gone by:

even in the hardest there was the heat

of those snowy streets.

This past year as well: when I, weakened

by chemo that has not succeeded

in curing me of this lymphoma,

have had you beside me with the same smile,

helping me to put together these poems.

I offer them to you as a year ends

that has been one of the happiest of my life.

59

The kitchen

The window, with its two panes of glass,

opens on to street level. In winter,

we keep the light on, those dark mornings,

and passers-by see us eating our breakfast.

Later, if it’s fine, a ray of sun

writes a beautiful memory on the table:

that of the pair of us among other voices,

first when they were babies: then the two girls

and the boy, so many conversations and laughter.

You and I talking, as well,

in the kitchen at night, while they are asleep.

The fear of what might be coming

ended there when it arrived.

Those sunny mornings, peaceful nights,

as though they were still looking into our eyes.

Now there are no paths that come from there.

There are no paths, but we are not lost.

60

Museums

I have always found it tiring and boring

to look at altarpieces taken from churches,

paintings representing scenes from the Bible,

monarchs on horseback, sumptuous clothing

where the painter shows off in every fold,

keeping the beast covered-up. I like paintings

where I can gaze at men and women,

quite often poor, in their own worlds

of peaceful interiors, at work or at ease.

All-embracing and cruel, Brueghel’s works,

the icy clarity of Flemish painting, liberate me.

The well-mannered disorder of the Impressionists,

and the thin women, shadowy and sad,

that Nonell painted.

The loneliness of Hopper, of Balthus and Freud,

of Paula Rego and Bacon. Maybe I shan’t have time

to see them again, but they are inside me,

like the underwear folded away in the cupboard.

61

Silent woman

It has been hard to understand you:

I imagine you with sorrows, huge and deep

and with so fe...

Table of contents

• DESCRIPTION
• TITLE PAGE
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• CONTENTS
• AN AMAZING WINTER (2017)
• WILD CREATURE (2020)
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• COPYRIGHT