Ernest Farrés

QUÈ SE'N PENSA DELS POETES

Language: catalan

Translations: spanish (LO QUE SE PIENSA DE LOS POETAS), german (Was denkt man von den Dichtern)

QUÈ SE'N PENSA DELS POETES
Nascuntur poetae?

Ben mirat, no se'n pensa
gairebé res. No es pensa:
i ara què estarà fent?
O bé: té res en perspectiva? Escriu?
Treballarà com qualsevol persona...?

No n'he tret l'aigua clara
si he parlat amb algú
sobre això. S'emboliquen
amb estereotips
o es mostren totalment
indiferents. A alguns
els fum que, quan tothom
balla els goigs de sant Prim,
ells romancegin apamant la lluna,
o que, mentre la gent
sap el pa que s'hi dóna,
els poetes demandin
l'anarquia. Profans
en matèria d'hipèrboles,
pressuposen i tot
que són uns malaurats corcs, escurabutxaques,
buidaampolles, tòtils, poca-soltes, paràsits
o proletaris-de-la-poesia.

No, de segur que no s'hi pensa gens.
Ben mirat, ni acudits
no es fan sobre poetes.

Ernest Farrés

photo © Georgina Miret

* 1967, Barcelona, Spain
lives in: Barcelona, Spain

Ernest Farrés is a journalist and writer. He works for the cultural supplement of La Vanguardia newspaper. He is the author of six volumes of poetry in Catalan: Clavar-ne una al mall i l’altra a l’enclusa (1996), Mosquits (1998), Edward Hopper (2006), Els efectes imprevisibles dels camps magnètics (2011), Blitzkrieg (2011) and Los Angeles (2015). Edward Hopper constitutes a sequence of poems based on the pictorial work of this renowned artist, which has garnered various awards, including the Robert Fagles Prize for the best translation of contemporary poetry into English (to the translator Lawrence Venuti, 2008). He has edited a reference anthology for young Catalan poets: 21 poetes del xxi (21 Poets of the 21st Century, 2001).

photo © Georgina Miret

In the words of the poet and critic Àlex Susanna, “Farrés is the type of author who is quite atypical, who has made himself unhurriedly but with an admirable stubbornness, steering entirely clear both of stardom and the prevailing gregarious spirit. […] The tone of his poems is as prosaic as that of a novel, because it shies away from lyrical incandescence and endeavours to adapt to the prose of life. His gain will have consisted precisely of being able to produce a high level of output on working days – and its sporadic counterpoints – that shape and misshape the life of ordinary people, whether painted or written.”