In 1983, the poet, translator and critic Francesc Parcerisas (Begues, 1944) was thirty-nine years old and had a solid lyrical work behind him made up of six titles (one of which, Variacions sobre un tema romàntic: ombra i llum, written four hands with Antoni Marí). Homes que es banyen, published in 1970, had received the Carles Riba award in 1966. At that time the poet was only twenty-two years old. It was, therefore, a case of notable precocity.
Between Variations... (1978), the last title of this group of six, and L'edat d'or (1983), which inaugurates the new cycle, five years pass. But there is a decisive fact: Jaume Vallcorba becomes, from 1983, the editor of Parcerisas. The only exception is the complete work volume Triomf del present (Poetic work 1965-1983), published by Columna in 1991. Quaderns Crema has edited, until now, six poems (including the one that, finally, has taken the title of Shadow and light. Variations on a romantic theme (1977-1978) ) and three diaries.
L'edat d'or, the first book entrusted to Jaume Vallcorba, is a milestone of Catalan poetry of the last decades of the 20th century, and its influence continues to this day. The author himself highlights the hinge function that the book exercises. After some works in which he was in favor of the –aesthetic– signs of time (a certain proclivity towards textualism, for example), the one we are discussing delves into a poetry that we could call moral and that has often been identified, somewhat equivocally, with the much-used poetry of experience. “The title,” Parcerisas recalls, “was chosen with enthusiasm by Joan Margarit and Toni Marí, among some suggested by me, while the three of them were having dinner one night at Les délices de France, a restaurant at the top of Muntaner Street (forty years ago). later it is still there), very close to where, some time later, Quaderns Crema would be installed.”
The poet Vicent Alonso, who in 1983 published his first collection of poems, Vel de claredats, acknowledges that L'edat d'or dazzled him. “I have always had a handful of the verses it contains in my head. The last six of the set [those in the poem Portrait of the Poet] could have been written by myself if, at the beginning of my poetic journey, I had had access to the art of a great poet like Parcerisas. “Veil, darkness, clarities, light…”
For his part, the critic Pere Ballart considers that it is a book that “arrived at a crucial date to teach the country that realism could also shine with an august varnish, and that the poetry of experience did not have to be only "that routine record of life initiated by so many officials of verse without any imagination." The poem Afaitat stands out: “How can we not think about him every time one stands in front of the mirror, about to compose the daily mask, a little more sure than the day before that the alliance with the body has begun to crack... ”
Susanna Rafart, poet and narrator, also recognizes her gratitude for Parcerisas' work: “It was a breath of fresh air in a time still very much indebted to hopelessness. A book that reminds me – as Horace's odes do – of the unpredictable gift of the present; that reveals Yannis Ritsos to me and the invulnerable jewel that we should all give ourselves for the mere fact of existing. Even considering Triomf del present canonical, there is another poem that explains the entire book to me: Magnolier a Hammersmith, generous journey towards enjoyment among ruins. A book that does not exhaust the ability of the being to fight against death and that expands life on our path of temporality.”
The mention of Ritsos by the author of Pou de glaç forces us to highlight one of the characteristics of the work: the incorporation of three foreign compositions (somehow, three and a half), which, integrated into the book, become inextricable. of him: the two poems by Ritsos, translated by Parcerisas himself from English, and one by Josep Elias. The first poem in the book is a variation on a poem by Lawrence Durrell. The poet clarifies: “The translations came naturally. In part, because I had used abundant quotes in Dues Suites and because I translated a lot and there were things that I loved. Elias's poem was a tribute to our friendship from our time as students at the university. He died in 1982, a blow. I translated the two Ritsos poems on the beach, at a campsite in Greece, on August 15, 1976, on a car trip that I shared with Bernadette Serrahima and her brother, the designer Claret Serrahima, and Anna Solà, her couple. They are among the oldest (they are only surpassed in age by Matí al bar). I wrote Durrell's poem in Barcelona, at the dawn of the eighties; He is a writer I admire. Together with Marcy Rudo and Beth Kuhnlein, I was able to interview him for El País, in Sommières, in the south of France, in 1988.”
The Extremaduran poet Álvaro Valverde read two poems in the florilegium New Catalan Poetry (1984). Five years later, he acquired the collection of poems in the bilingual edition of the Valencian publishing house Mestral: “What a brilliant discovery! There, the youth, the sea, the bodies, the summer. A light (solar and Mediterranean) and a tone (of a timeless, cultured and elegant classicism). Above all, a state of mind. Pure Life. I have reread it and it is still intact. I am left with the final verses, the ones that close Portrait of the poet and this masterpiece.”
The poet and translator Txema Martínez Inglés also praises the work and, in terms of its influence, places it at the level of other titles of the time, such as Passeig d'aniversari, by Joan Vinyoli. “L'edat d'or contains everything Parcerisas: lyrical realism, the transcendence of everyday life through seemingly insignificant details, moral duplicity, desire, the very concrete carnality of the things that trigger who knows what, unexpectedly, the music of the lexicon, the tone... A certain narrative sense that reminds me of the tradition in which I recognize myself. A message, by way of conclusion, that takes me away and that fills the void that the verses proclaim... The song of life and feeling, so Mediterranean." The man from Lleida highlights another work by Parcerisas, Natura morta amb nens: “I think it is one of the last masterpieces that Catalan poetry has produced.”
The Asturian poet and prose writer Xuan Bello knew L'edat d'or already in the nineties: “It transformed, from a periphery, an avant-garde – the newest Castilian poetry. More truth - with all the voices and echoes setting the sense of fashion on fire - the verses of L'edat d'or are an x-ray of the Iberian poetic root: there is Ferrater in his accent and, I warn you, Valente and Blas de Otero ”.
Àngels Marzo, a poet awarded twice this year, discovered the book at the age of seventeen, and admits that "it was essential to connect with Catalan poetry at an essential level, as had previously happened to me with the poetry of Antonio Machado in the framework of the Spanish literature. Parcerisas' poetic voice, clear and powerful, seduced me from the first reading. "I think that in that book I found a way of writing that linked directly to the type of poetry that I aspired to create." Despite the years that have passed, Marzo confesses that “I can still recite from memory poems like La desesperació de Penèlope , Matí al bar , Epístola per a unes noces or Als quaranta anys , who is also turning forty!”
Parcerisas' life, after 1983, has been tireless, on an intellectual and cultural level: he worked as a professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona between 1986 and 2015 and presided over the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes between 1998 and 2004. On the other hand, On the other hand, he has continued translating, publishing criticism, delving into the essayistic aspect of his work... A broad and rich work, which has earned the National Culture (2015) and Jaume Fuster (2018) awards. His figure, his work, are unavoidable in Catalan cultural life of the last fifty years.
The covers of Quaderns Crema's initial poetry collection fit the adjective name, much less yellow than the current ones. So elegant, they showed Jaume Vallcorba's good taste in design and typography. Forty years ago, offset had not yet established itself in book publishing. L'edat d'or was printed in lead, with inks that will not be erased. The conditions of the edition have just made the substance of a very influential collection of poems lasting, which inaugurated a new cycle in the author's poetry. Quaderns Crema announces for the winter of 2024, coinciding with the author's eightieth anniversary, the reissue of Triomf del present, which, as noted, includes the book that turns forty this year plus the six that preceded it and other scattered works.
