Catadonia

Joan Margarit has won a host of awards including Spain’s national poetry prize for his book “Casa de misericòrdia”. No, I haven’t made a mistake there – Joan (pronounced Show-Ann) is a man’s name in Catalonia.

Margarit is also an architect and that might be why there is a clarity about his poems. They get to the point and are not too wordy.

“You can only be a realist. There is nothing more than reality to write about,” says Joan.

Without doubt, he is a poet well worth checking out. You can find some of his work in English at this website.

www.joanmargarit.com/

From my window, at Fontajau, a peaceful little barrio, I can watch the Ter making its way through the outskirts of Girona. It passes by the bingo hall and the local brothel with its big neon arrow pointing to the front door. The Ter resists temptation and sneaks on down past the weeping willows at Pedret.

This river and I go back a few years now. I used to live in a smaller town in the more remote interior of Catalonia, one hour west of here. The Ter also skirted the edge of that village, flowing on through Torelló and Manlleu before arriving in Roda de Ter, home of Miquel Marti i Pol, a very fine poet indeed who spent his whole life living by the river.

Having just moved out of Girona’s old town where revellers sing and shout in Catalan, Spanish and English, until 3 am; peace and quiet is high on my priority list. I even saw a mink the other day as I crossed Pont de la Barca at the edge of the Devesa Park. It was oblivious to my gaze, charging through the water, full of intent, wreaking havoc among the carp population before pulling itself up onto some driftwood and drying itself off.

I may technically still be on foreign soil but I know this river’s background as it trundles on towards its Costa Brava estuary. I have lived in so many places in recent years and need to go regress, even if only for a few hours.

What is there left for poets to say about rivers?

I’ve said my piece but I expect somebody else will think of something. There are metaphors and motifs that have been done to death: the return to the source, continuity, peace and tranquillity. But each individual can put their own stamp on them. Years ago, I got a lot out of reading Neil Gunn novels like Highland River or A River Runs Through it by Norman Maclean. The latter sank its hook into me right from the off with one of the most memorable first sentences I’ve read in a novel: “In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.”

The Findhorn, my own highland river, is just five minutes walk from my mother’s house. It’s one of my favourite places in the world and a place of peace and inspiration, no matter the weather. The finest spot of all is at the old wooden bridge over to the village of Broom of Moy. The river is wide there and flanked by woods on either side. Solitary fishermen wade out over large stones and spend hours there in the hope a fit salmon will be lured into having a bite. You can lurk in the broom and startle the odd heron, causing it to circle unexpectedly. Wherever I happen to be in the world, the River Findhorn is my mental point of return and a port to sleep in whenever life gets too stormy.

On The River Findhorn is the first poem in my new chapbook, Shellfish and Umbrellas

http://www.koopress.co.uk

A River Runs Through It

I’ve seen quite a bit of daft translation recently. My reason for posting it is not to have a laugh at how bad foreigners are at speaking English. That would be a bit rich when English-speakers are generally among the worst or laziest at learning foreign languages. Fair enough if it gives people a laugh but the point of this post is to show what can happen when you translate literally using translation tools or when you don’t employ an experienced native English-speaking translator.

When deciding to save a few quid on a decent translator, businesses should be aware that it might result in their enterprise being ridiculed and to possible subsequent lost trade as it makes them look unprofessional.

This English menu comes from a tapas bar near the Puerta del Sol in the heart of Madrid:

Shark in Seasoning
Fried Chopitos
Friedsquids
Fritter of Fish Changed
Shrimps to the Chopped Garlic
Small Squids to the Plate
Tail of Bull
Sausages to the Cider
Smoke Ham to the Galician
Iberian Ham
Cured Manchego Cheese

Well they got two or three right anyway.

"The rich countries can take measures. In the Netherlands, they create floating houses to combat floods. In Vietnam, they just teach people to swim."

-Ruhal Ahmed, A UN Development Officer

It’s the Spanish general election tomorrow. The ruling party, PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party) was slightly ahead in the polls last week. Opinion polls cannot be published in the six days before the election in case they influence the result. But if PSOE is to stay in power they may need to form a coalition with some of the Catalan and/or Basque nationalist parties.

Last time around the general election took place in the wake of the March 11 bombing in Madrid. It is thought to have had a major bearing on the result. This time, a former socialist councillor was shot dead two days before the election. Who knows how this could affect tomorrow’s result.

This week, it has been interesting for me to talk to people at my work in an attempt to try to gauge public opinion. I’ve been struck by the fact that a few people who see themselves as either left-leaning or certainly not peperos (followers of the opposition Partido Popular), think that the Spanish immigration laws need to be severely tightened up and that immigrants are at the heart of many of the problems in modern Spanish society.

In my view, the PP has been playing if not the race card, then certainly the immigrant card. If people who do not see themselves as traditional PP supporters have been won over by this view, then I’d say Mariano Rajoy’s party has a good chance of attracting many floating voters in a number of areas. For that reason, I would not write off the PP’s chances of achieving a largely unexpected victory.

In recent times, Spain has become a country people want to come to live and work in, rather than a European backwater to escape from. Many Spaniards are struggling to come to terms with the increasing number of immigrants. Others are exploiting it for political gain. Rajoy likes to use the word “avalanche” to describe the recent wave of immigration that Spain and many other EU countries have experienced and encouraged. To hear some people talk (Rajoy among them), you’d think crime was virtually non-existent in Spain until all the immigrants arrived.