Miquel Martí i Pol (1929-2003) lived for 24 years -between 1956 and 1981- in the yellow house in Roda de Ter and it is where he wrote some of his most relevant titles such as La fàbrica’ or ‘Dear Marta’. The director of the Foundation, Montse Caralt, explains that the house was full of books and, in fact, they have inventoried 2,596. The originals -which are full of dedications and notes- are kept in the Bac de Roda Library, which guards its collection, and, for this reason, they appeal to other libraries, institutions and individuals that have these titles to transfer them to them. The idea is to fill the shelves of the house with these books so that “the visitor gets an idea of ??what Martí i Pol read and can read it in the same place that he did.”
The house where Miquel Martí i Pol lived in Roda de Ter is being restored so that it can be visited. In fact, it is expected that this 2023 the second phase of the project will be completed, which consists of the rehabilitation of the interior part of the building. Finally, the third and final phase will still be pending -for which there is still no scheduled timetable or related financing- which will consist of the musealization of the building.
However, the mayor of the town, Toni Mas, has said that this is one of the City Council’s priorities and that it will try to do it “in the shortest possible time”. “We will look for financing but, where the subsidies do not arrive, the City Council will have to arrive”, he clarifies. The last phase is budgeted with 100,000 euros.
However, the Fundació Miquel Martí i Pol is already working on this last phase of the project and has made an appeal to collect the more than 2,000 books that the poet had in his home. They want to fill all the shelves of the future house-museum with the titles that Miquel Martí i Pol read during the years that he lived in the yellow house. Montse Caralt explains that the originals are kept in the Bac de Roda Library and that they cannot be used because they could be damaged.
The director of the foundation assures that many of these titles are very old editions that are out of print and, therefore, she believes that many people may have them at home or they may be kept in library and publisher warehouses.
With this project, explains Caralt, it is also intended to “create emotional ties” with future visitors to the house-museum. “We ask the families that give us the books to write a dedication and thus, in the future, when they come to visit the museum they will be able to consult their book or others, and thus it will be known where each book lived before,” she says.
Some of the titles being sought are ‘L’Extrany’, by Albert Camus, published in the collection ‘A tot vent’ by Proa in 1981, or ‘El Cementiri de Sinera’, by Salvador Espriu, published in the collection ‘Els books of the scorpion’ from Edicions 62 in 1978. But among the numbers Martí and Pol read were also other authors such as Virgina Woolf, Teresa Pàmies, Feliu Formosa, Joan Margarit, Bertolt Brecht or Marguerite Duras.
The director of the Foundation explains that they want the house-museum to be a “living” project with constant evolution and, in addition, stresses that they have taken into account the opinion of future visitors. “They have told us that they would like to be able to enter the poet’s intimate and personal space and get to know him from another perspective,” she says. For this reason, the musealization project will focus on recreating the house as it was at that time. “The children of Miquel Martí i Pol tell us that the house was full of books: the corridors, the rooms, the dining room, everywhere,” she explains.
In addition, Caralt says that they have visited other house-museums of patrimonial authors from all over Catalonia, the rest of the State and also from abroad and, in most of them, “the books are not consultable”. For this reason, in this case they have decided that they are, and they are considering a 2.0 house-museum, that is, “that you can not only see things, but also touch and interact”.
An example of this will be the recreation of the poet’s offices. Miquel Martí i Pol had two offices in the yellow house. Until the seventies the poet had his office installed in the basement, but with the onset of multiple sclerosis he had to move it to the ground floor of the building, since he could not go up and down stairs. Caralt explains that in the house-museum it will be possible to see what the office in the basement was like, but it will also be possible to interact with the office on the ground floor: “The visitor will be able to sit in the chair, write and compose texts with the typewriter and interact with everything he had.”
A poet who totally breaks the difference between classes
The director of the Foundation highlights that Miquel Martí i Pol made a “feat” that is “totally break the difference between classes in literature.” “Before, poetry was something very cultured, which only a few could reach. Well, Miquel Martí i Pol breaks with this and begins to write books in which the protagonists are the people of the street. He appeals to those people and they feel who are part of that culture and breaks the line of classes”, he emphasizes.
In fact, Caralt considers that for Roda de Ter it is a “reward” that the poet’s house-museum is still preserved and considers that they should “know how to exploit it”. The mayor of Roda de Ter, Toni Mas, also sees it this way, who believes that it is important that the town “believes” in the project and sends it abroad: “This is how we will establish this link between the country, Roda de Ter and the figure of Miquel Martí i Pol”.
For her part, the Councilor for Culture and Heritage of Rueda de Ter, Elisabet Contreras, stresses that for Roda de Ter having a national poet such as Miquel Marti i Pol is a “privilege” and a “pride” for all the people and assures which gives them a projection at the country level. “It is a patrimony that at the City Council level we must care for and invest, and it is a cultural reference for schools, the Institute and for the entire population,” she says.