It was 1999 when Josep Ramon Roig (Tortosa, 1956) published his first book of poems (Malbé, Edicions 62/Empúries), with which he had won the Ciutat de Palma Joan Alcover award the previous year. The years before and after he was a regular presence at the recitals that changed the poetic ecosystem from the book to orality –in 2004 he participated in the International Poetry Festival of Barcelona, at the Palau de la Música–, but little by little he left. diluting, until now, that Ben bé (LaBreu) has just published, which, as he himself explains in the prologue, “wants to continue and, at the same time, complete Malbé”. In fact, some of the poems he publishes here were already classics of oral poetry in the early 2000s, such as Lo tango parlat, Jo? or Espai mascle, and establish a link.
What has happened during these twenty years?
This book has many vicissitudes, they are complex life circumstances. Malbé, which was very well received, was a compilation of what I had been doing for the last twenty years, already, in a conscientiously constructed book. Then I went into crisis, because it was a book that also had aspects like a literary manifesto, but I wasn't completely happy either. On the other hand, the circumstances of life lead you to consider other things. I had begun to write a few poetic cycles but they did not satisfy me, except for some things that are now part of the new book, especially the scenic poems, which are in the first part, and also those of Les primeries de 'Ben bé'. I did a first project of Ben bé after a few years, in which the last poem collected here was already included.
That last poem already gave the title.
Yes, it was a poetic logic. I also continued to make phonetic poems, but more recitative, which have a different tone. I also wanted to keep a section that I did in Verdaguer year, in which I took verses from Mossèn Cinto and arranged them as a disc jockey might do. That year it was important that the poets of the time rediscover Verdaguer and the taboo that existed was lifted.
It is one of the cycles of the book...
There are a series of cycles and they all have an internal cycle at the same time, and it seemed to me that Verdaguer fit in quite well.
And it also divides the book into two parts.
Yes, the first one is like the continuation of Malbé. I had a dilemma: if I put only the central bone of Ben bé or also include the first part, where the most scenic poetry part is.
The nucleus that starts talking about the loss of the voice.
You can't say things. The ostracism comes from not being able to express the things that were happening, that have to be said, but you can't, you try but they just don't work out.
As if it were someone else?
No, because you are always someone else. The problem is unhappiness, dissort, which is a topic that Simone Weil deals with a lot in a part of her book Waiting for God (Edicions 62, translation by Hermínia Grau, 1965). It is a term that goes beyond suffering, pain, suffering... Dissort seems much deeper to me, although we can also call it misfortune. In any case, the concept of misfortune based on Simone Weil helped me understand what Ben bé's theme had to be. The loss of the poetic voice is a misfortune.
And that made you leave the recital scene?
Everything goes together. It also has to do with the reason for the extinction, because the thing did not give more. It is difficult to explain. When there's a creative crisis, there are some things you can't say, for whatever reason. At a decisive moment I begin to find a way to explain it. Weil gives me a guideline, because it is not a simple pain, it is something that is nailed inside. I'm finding ways to say things. At first I didn't stop reciting, but in the end I wasn't in this scene.
And it was closing.
My manifesto is the trifle, which is closing in on oneself. It is minimalism taken to a melancholic expressionism, a refuge, ostracism as a refuge, as a lair. There is a whole series of symptoms, and I am already working on aspects of withdrawal, of unfolding, which are very enigmatic topics for me.
He also raises a family and dedicates himself to it...
The family issue is important, but it is not part of the problem. The problem is that first you have to know what you want to say and you have to be able to say it. Pessoa also helped me a lot, on the one hand to understand the existential problem and the unfolding in the sense of distance. Pessoa was a great irony of life. When he says that the poet is a pretender, he does not mean that he is a liar, but rather that somehow thanks to that the poet can see things that you cannot. When he develops heteronomy, which is not the subject that interests me the most, it is because he realizes that we can see from different points of view, we have certain freelancers who are living in some way, because it allows you to distance yourself and at the same time get involved in a new and very special way.
From Pessoa, he arrives at Fausto.
Yes, he wrote one. The history of Pessoa's editions is bizarre, but a certain critical level has been reached, and it is interesting and impressive. It has been an important discovery. For me, the important books by Pessoa, apart from the heteronyms, are his Faust and the Book of Disquiet.
Is it part of the uneasiness to find the lost voice?
He is one of the greatest post-symbolist poets. In his Faust, for example, Mephistopheles disappears. He is really aware that it is a different time in which the devil becomes something else, there is no person or angel behind it. Lately I say that the devil is big data, it has become depersonalized.
From here on he also faces death.
It's that I have a presentiment of death, and a few months later they find an illness on me and I enter a stage in which I am chronically ill. I am writing these things, the dreams of unfolding, the forebodings, and death becomes absolutely present. Death becomes a companion, a bit. And other voices appear that speak, I see that it doesn't have to be me, why always have the same point of view.
And a woman's voice comes to him, he says in the book.
That makes me a little uneasy, I don't know what women will say about that either. I myself do not know. I found it, it goes like this. It is a bit of the heteronomic principle. It speaks of the same life cycle, but it was not premeditated, I found it in an unconscious and inspired way, and it is being built, with modesty.
Unthinkable.
Yes, there is a mediumistic aspect in my poetry. I have always believed in inspiration. I already saw him in the recitals of the first period. They are themes that are focusing the work, that are giving a guideline and depth. There is also an aspect of prayer that I find very interesting, which is done by the woman's voice, because of course, Fausto cannot do it.
In any case, throughout the book there is a stylistic evolution...
Yes, but I don't know if it's worth talking about this much, because more than evolution there is diversity, and I think they don't bother each other. As a poet I had to do this book because I have not stopped writing and I have asked myself many questions at many levels. He had to throw ballast, exorcise a whole series of curses and demons that he carried inside. Finish by opening the possibility of continuing to write without this thick fog. A little misery is fine, but enough was enough. The book has been like a spell to open. And on the other hand, I didn't say that I was ready to publish until I saw that it was, now, in a creative process. It's not possible to say everything at once, but I feel more confident and I notice that now I can write another book. That has been an espetuc, which we say, had to be done because otherwise the creature would die inside the mother's womb.
And what you write now is in this more discursive line?
I think I'm on another level. I was very intuitive and now I work with more depth, and also from another vital moment. The body doesn't help me to make scenic or oral poetry either, as I had defined it in the early nineties to confront it with polypoetry, although later we all went together. For me it was a very voice and body work, more naked. But I have always wanted to build opus.
Catalan version, here
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