Cart
Free US shipping over $10
Proud to be B-Corp

Wild Creature Joan Margarit

Wild Creature By Joan Margarit

Wild Creature by Joan Margarit


$10.00
Condition - Very Good
Only 1 left

Summary

Catalan poet Joan Margarit (1938-2021) was one of Spain's major modern writers. In this final collection he faces the approach of death with courage, humility and even humour. '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.'-Sharon Olds

Wild Creature Summary

Wild Creature by Joan Margarit

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 Sofia 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.

Wild Creature Reviews

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 *
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. -- Carol Rumens * Guardian.com (Poem of the Week) *
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. -- Stewart Conn * The Herald (Books of the Year) *

About Joan Margarit

Joan Margarit (1938-2021) was born in Sanauja, La Segarra region, in Catalonia. He was an architect as well as a poet, 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 Gaudi's Sagrada Familia 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 published Spanish versions of all his work, gaining recognition as a leading poet in Spanish. In 2008 he received the Premio Nacional de Poesia del Estado Espanol for his collection Casa de Misericordia, 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 Victor Sandoval for all his poetry. He was awarded the 2019 Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world's highest literary honour, worth EURO125,000, 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 Albeniz 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 Sofia 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 Misericordia (2007) and Misteriosament felic (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 dificil (It Wasn't Far Away or Difficult, 2010), Es perd el senyal (The Signal Is Fading, 2012) and Estimar es un lloc (From Where to Begin to Love Again, 2014). His final 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).

Additional information

GOR012126608
9781780375922
1780375921
Wild Creature by Joan Margarit
Used - Very Good
Paperback
Bloodaxe Books Ltd
2021-11-11
136
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

Customer Reviews - Wild Creature