Gabriel Ferrater focuses on the programming of the Sant Cugat National Poetry Festival

Transfigured into Gabriel Ferrater, the actor Pol López welcomes this Thursday the Sant Cugat del Vallès National Poetry Festival, which this year will dedicate its 22nd edition almost entirely to the figure of Gabriel Ferrater, as a result of the centenary of his birth and 50 years of his death.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
13 October 2022 Thursday 07:46
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Gabriel Ferrater focuses on the programming of the Sant Cugat National Poetry Festival

Transfigured into Gabriel Ferrater, the actor Pol López welcomes this Thursday the Sant Cugat del Vallès National Poetry Festival, which this year will dedicate its 22nd edition almost entirely to the figure of Gabriel Ferrater, as a result of the centenary of his birth and 50 years of his death.

It will do so at the Teatre-Auditori with the theatrical production Vull subornar la Joventut, a play by Andreu Gomila based on texts by the poet from Reus –and who lived in Sant Cugat between 1965 and 1972, where he committed suicide– directed by Pau Carrió. The show – a production of this City Council that premiered in May at Barcelona Poesia – also incorporates Ferrater's own voice through audio cuts from the Catalan literature classes she taught at the original Universitat Autònoma.

Until October 28, under the motto Word, poetry, Ferrater, the figure of the poet will multiply in thirty acts, including several sessions of the Enraonar cycle - which actually started on October 3 - with Maria Callís and Jaume Coll Mariné , simultaneous exhibitions and other shows such as Planeta Ferrater, with Lluís Anton Baulenas, Gemma Deusedas and Pau Mainé or Qel Xiberta sings Gabriel Ferrater for Gabriel Ferrater, with Raquel Xiberta and Manuel Corbalán, and dramaturgy by Jordi Lara. There will also be round tables, such as L'art de provocare: Blai Bonet, Gabriel Ferrater and Joan Fuster, with Marta Pessarrodona, Jordi Cornudella (curator of Year Ferrater), Sebastià Alzamora and Enric Sòria (curator of Year Fuster), which will mark the closing , on the 28th. Another special event is an itinerary led by Maria Nunes, on the 23rd, which includes a stop at Ferrater's last house, Rambla Ribatallada 32.

The other highlight of the festival, in fact the central event, will be the traditional Night of Poetry, on the 15th, in the monastery, where Ferrater will recite the title No diré res de mi, accompanied by the Brossa Quartet, a good list of poets: Miguel Ángel Adrover, Vicenç Altaió, Anna Ballbona, Lluís Calvo, Maria Callís, Míriam Cano, David Caño, Enric Casasses, Andreu Gomila, Laia Llobera, Maria Antònia Massanet, Josep Pedrals, Susanna Rafart, Jaume Subirana, Adrià Targa and Carles Rebassa -recent winner of the Gabriel Ferrater award with El Caire Formentera (Editions 62), which he presents on October 19 at the Cafè Auditori.

As the deputy mayor for Culture of Sant Cugat, Esther Madrona, summed up: "The city will be filled with poetry, not only written, but in different forms of expression."

And there is even more of a finale as an extra ball will be the closing act of Year Ferrater, already on November 22, with a show in the Teatre-Auditori by Marcos Morau (La Veronal) and the writer Pol Guasch, who during the celebration of the World Poetry Day at the CCCB in Barcelona last March they had already presented with Lorena Nogal I do not promise to give you anything better than a doubt, based on the poet's correspondence with Helena Valentí.

Catalan version, here