Poetry and Prose
Poetry & Prose is the first time Jordi Llavina’s work has been translated into English and published. The book is a collection of two of his most important and popular pieces of work: The Hermitage and The Pomegranate. In both, Jordi Llavina evokes the sights, sounds and smells of the Mediterranean landscape while weaving together themes of singular poetic beauty.
The Hermitage, a long poem of more than 1400 lines, tells of the author’s physical and metaphysical journey up a hill in southern Catalonia to visit a hermitage. Llavina touches on many themes in this poem, including love, death, family, loss, hope and memories. In 2019, Jordi Llavina was awarded the prestigious Lletra d’Or prize for this poem.
The second piece of work in the collection is The Pomegranate. Again written about a journey, The Pomegranate is a mix of both poetry and prose and tells the story of a grieving wanderer through the Catalan countryside.
EUROPEAN LITERATURE NETWORK. Full review here
This collection of poetry and prose, in Hamilton’s careful and precise translation, is breathtaking. Each piece is heavy on symbolism and allegory. Each powerful piece meditates on mankind’s (im)mortality. Nevertheless, both “The Hermitage” and “The Pomegranate Tree” harness a peaceful and melancholic beauty, a beauty which the reader is led through by the writer himself. Perhaps most striking, Llavina doesn’t hesitate to reach out to his readers, to remind them that he is there on this intimidating yet fascinating journey with them. In Poetry & Prose, the birth of the reader is almost certainly not requited by the death of the author and the act of “writing” is something that the author and the reader embark on together.
Josep Maria Fonalleras, El Periódico
‘I’ll say it straight off: it’s one of the best poems that I have read in a long time.’
Miquel Àngel Llauger, Diari Ara
‘The poem, wisely constructed, is full of symbolic images working their magic like a memento mori.’
Manuel Cuyàs, El Punt Avui
‘Llavina’s best book, in both prose and verse.’
Esteve Miralles, Núvol
‘Control and chaos. Franciscanism and Darwinism. Maturity and precipitousness. Digested failures and celebrated hope. Solitude and patrimony. Truth and famine within each verse.’
FROM POETRY & PROSE
LONE I climb once more, years later, up to Sant Pere’s hermitage. The air is still, and the glare of a raw July sun will leave my neck and shoulders burnt and tender. At dusk, I will start to suffer from their idle burning prickle: my skin, throbbing to the thud of my heartbeat. How I’ll rue having scaled the slope, my torso exposed. And yet, it’s often only so that, at times, we feel our bodies through the crimson, attentive flesh watching over our sleeping souls. By this I make no reference to the violent afflictions that from mortal frame make dark pasture: tumours, plagues, cancers and ulcers. Again, I follow the footpath I have wandered so many times.
