Narcís Comadira (Girona, 1942) publishes the book of poems this January ‘Human movements‘ (Editions 62), a collection of verses written over the past five years, with references to both the Process and the coronavirus pandemic. The volume “is not a diary” – clarifies the poet and artist -, nor is the order of the poems chronological, because the context is only “the reason” from which he writes them, always with the aim that “they can to endure emotionally and as a structure ”. The publication of the book coincides with the eightieth anniversary of the Girona author, a birthday gift that rounds out the reissue of his translation of the ‘Cants‘ from Leopardi (Column). Narcís Comadira received in 2021 the National Culture Award, granted by CoNCA.
Narcís Comadira’s new collection of poems arrives, as is customary for the poet, five years following the last one, entitled ‘Black way‘. For this reason, the collection of poems included is, once once more, a compendium of everything he has written in the last five years. The book takes the title of a verse from Dante to Comedy (Paradise XXXIII, 37) and consists of two long poems as an introduction and conclusion, the first of which gives name to the volume, and the last is the monologue ‘Ghosts in the night‘, written for Xavier Albertí for the piece ‘Decameron‘released at TNC. The central body consists of 40 short poems. This poetic “no” diary is set, between wonder and horror, in forty moments of intense commotion. In the opinion of the editor Jordi Cornudella, the collection contains “enormously characteristic” poems of Comadira’s way of doing things, that is, “capacity for observation, subtlety, diction and, above all, emotional charge, which is what poetry is all regarding in the background”.
Celebration of the 80th anniversary
Narcís Comadira said on Friday that he was “very happy” to have been able to publish this book precisely on these dates, on the eve of its eightieth anniversary, as well as that Group 62 wanted to republish Leopardi’s ‘Songs’, with “presentation luxurious, with a hard cover, and letting me draw the cover ». The writer has jokingly speculated regarding the possibility that this volume of poems will be the last one he writes, especially because of his habit of publishing every five years. “Considering that I am old and more and more lazy, I may be the last,” he joked without closing any doors.
Comadira has described the collection as a “diary”, although there are experiences from the last five years and references to recognizable historical events, such as the events of October 2017, the protests over the ruling of the Trial, or the impact of the pandemic. “What I like is that the poem can last, emotionally and as a construction,” said the artist. The writer has once once more said that his great references are Gabriel Ferrater i Jose Maria Valverde. The poet, literary journalist and visual artist received the CoNCA National Culture Award last year. In 2014 he collected all his verse production until then (translations aside) in the volume Poetry 1966-2012, which groups its various books into five parts. In 2018 he released a new collection of poems, Black Way. Now added ‘Human movements‘, a volume that Comadira would not mind adding in an extension of his poetic anthology, but grouped with others in an umbrella “chapter” entitled the previous’ Black Tide’. According to its publisher, Jordi Cornudella, the possibility is very real, as he considers ‘Human Movements’ as “one of the many good books” that the author has made in recent years.
.
