ELS PEUS SEMPRE LI FEIEN MAL
Els peus sempre li feien mal
al pare.
Ranquejant recorria totes les sabateries
cercant unes sabates prou còmodes que l’ajudessin
a dur el pes de tots els traus
els treps i els talls
que la mar li havia fet.
No les va trobar mai. Va haver d’anar-se’n
descalç amb el rellotge de polsera i el ganivet
de llescar pa de llescar llàgrimes dins la butxaca del gec i
una cara blanca com l’escuma de les ones
que tantes vegades va muntar.
M’ho deia sempre:
No vaig tenir infància.
No s’ho treia del cap:
Vaig aprendre a escriure el meu nom al front.
Giscaven bales lliscaven estrelles
de sang quan jo aprenia a escriure el meu nom.
No volia ser un peó qualsevol.
*
I deia la mare:
És un home plantós. Llàstima
que no sàpiga escriure. Tu
has d’anar a escola Antònia. No
has de ser una ignorant com ton pare filla.
I el blavet dels ulls se li escampava per les galtes quan
diluviana
plorava la seva absència.
ARRELS
A la memòria li han sortit arrels. Els records
són minúsculs com les monedes d’un cèntim. Cal
tenir-ne les butxaques plenes per poder anar al forn
a comprar pa.
El pare sempre m’ho deia:
Amb les butxaques buides perds l’equilibri.
El pa omple un home.
L’orgull omple una camisa.
Caminava satisfet pels passadissos del supermercat sota els neons.
Escopia el lleu d’un verd alga devora les pomes i les taronges.
Escopia flegmes d’un groc rovell davant la parada del peix.
La gent fugia de la seva figura de la Mort amb pebres
però ell tornava a casa amb una bossa plena de raïm
content de sentir-se alat.
M’ho deia sempre:
Als deu anys
vaig conèixer la mar gran.
Als dotze anys
vaig conèixer els temporals.
Els dofins. Els paranys dels horitzons.
No s’ho treia del cap:
Una vegada vaig perdre la roba i el rellotge.
Escrivia Joan
en l’aire
quan la barca es va enfonsar. No
volia ser un negat anònim.
*
I deia la mare:
Camina empinat. Com si governés el vent.
Llàstima que no sàpiga guardar la seva roba. Tu
has d’anar més viva Antònia
no amollis mai allò que és teu.
I el carmí dels llavis li regalimava pel mentó
igual que la sang
regalima
per les cames de les dones.
UNA INSTANTÀNIA
Els pits sota el jersei desafien la plaça
a la fotografia.
Era molt jove quan un espontani em va fotografiar
baixant els esglaons de l’església. (Al fons el campanar contra el cel.)
Els homes sortiren del bar amb una cassalla a la mà.
Somreien
etílics i concupiscents.
Era diumenge.
De tots ells només la mirada del pare era aigua de la mar amb veles.
No posseïa fortuna però teixia xarxes:
Atrapar el temps.
Recobrar el minut exacte de la puresa.
M’ho deia sempre:
Als tretze anys la mar ja em feia mal a l’esquena.
Als quinze ni tan sols no coneixia la cassalla ni l’aspirina.
*
I deia la mare:
Encara somia platges. Tu no has de ser
com ton pare filla. Ell sempre
s’ha deixat seduir fàcilment.
I un rast de planys se li van encallar a les genives
igual que els hams dels palangres s’encallen
en les prades de posidònia.
LA BARCA
Després de perdre la barca
va bregar amb les onades
que remolcaven negats que pareixien llunes
damunt la mar
i vagueries d’enamorats
el pare.
La seva dèria era abastar l’eternitat:
Una amant bruna a la costa de Tànger i una amant rossa
a la platja de la Cala.
M’ho deia sempre:
Si als vint anys fonyava onades
era perquè la pena em tornés vi.
*
I diu la mare:
Està ple de tubs i d’agulles.
Fermat al llit. Lligat
a les olors de la mar.
Els llavis se li fonen i creu que és
Déu caminant sobre les aigües d’un vaixell.
de Lovely
Antònia Vicens i Picornell
Listen to "His Feet Always Hurt" and "Roots" read in the original by the translator:
Vicens felt compelled to write in verse when, in her words, her life “començava a caure a trossos i els versos eren el recipient més adequat i flexible per agafar-los” (“began falling to pieces and verse was the most suitable and flexible container to catch them”). Memories of her childhood in Santanyí, a town on the coast of Mallorca, inundate the poems of Lovely, which was written after her father, who worked as a fisherman and smuggler, passed away. In this collection, Vicens unclogs and holds her childhood memories through sensuous and precise poetry. The context of post-Civil War Mallorca, with its patriarchal and Catholic dictatorship, steered my choices as a translator.
Through the use of line breaks, I tried to hold the complexity of the messages the speaker lays out, as well as to embody her process of working through both her mother’s and her father’s words. For instance, I decided to break the line after “not” in “Daughter you must not / be like your father” to play with the tension between what the mother says and enforces and what the daughter hears and desires. As Vicens observes, “la mare es posava sempre com a mirall . . . i les filles, no tenint cap altre model, un pic adultes, esdevenien la mare.” The girl in these poems sees a way out of this mother-mirror, in her father’s gaze of “sails and seawater.” She doesn’t want to become an “illa-redós de mariners cansats” like her mother and the women around her, and she cannot avoid admiring the perceived freedom and audacity of her father.
English is a language of power, and I witness the hierarchy between English, Spanish and Catalan every day. Eva Cruz Yáñez argues that translation builds a bridge between past and present, between diverse cultures and languages, but that we need to ask ourselves about the nature of this bridge, and what exactly crosses over it. I want the bridge that my translation builds to create networks instead of hierarchies, and I want it to foster respect for Catalan languages and cultures, and act as a springboard to the rest of Vicens’s work and to the exciting work of Catalan women writers.
Through the use of line breaks, I tried to hold the complexity of the messages the speaker lays out, as well as to embody her process of working through both her mother’s and her father’s words. For instance, I decided to break the line after “not” in “Daughter you must not / be like your father” to play with the tension between what the mother says and enforces and what the daughter hears and desires. As Vicens observes, “la mare es posava sempre com a mirall . . . i les filles, no tenint cap altre model, un pic adultes, esdevenien la mare.” The girl in these poems sees a way out of this mother-mirror, in her father’s gaze of “sails and seawater.” She doesn’t want to become an “illa-redós de mariners cansats” like her mother and the women around her, and she cannot avoid admiring the perceived freedom and audacity of her father.
English is a language of power, and I witness the hierarchy between English, Spanish and Catalan every day. Eva Cruz Yáñez argues that translation builds a bridge between past and present, between diverse cultures and languages, but that we need to ask ourselves about the nature of this bridge, and what exactly crosses over it. I want the bridge that my translation builds to create networks instead of hierarchies, and I want it to foster respect for Catalan languages and cultures, and act as a springboard to the rest of Vicens’s work and to the exciting work of Catalan women writers.
Antònia Vicens i Picornell (b. 1941, Santanyí, Mallorca) is one of the great authors of Catalan literature. In 1967, she was awarded the Premi Sant Jordi de novel·la for her debut novel 39º a l’ombra (Selecta, 1968). She continued to thrive as a novelist and short story writer. In 2009, Vicens turned to poetry and published her first collection, Lovely, which was republished by Jardins de Samarcanda in 2019. She has published four more poetry collections since then, all critically acclaimed. She has been the recipient of numerous prestigious awards–most recently, in 2022, the Premi d’Honor de les Lletres Catalanes, which recognized the solidity, innovation and experimentation of her literary trajectory, as well as her commitment to the Catalan language and her activism.
Laia Sales Merino is a poet, teacher and translator from the Catalan Pyrenees currently based in Barcelona. She writes and translates across three languages: Catalan, Spanish and English. Her work can be found in amberflora, Ambit, harana poetry and Variant Literature among others, and has been included in several anthologies such as SMEOP (Urban) from Black Sunflowers. She is an assistant editor of the poetry journal Anthropocene. She shares poetry on Instagram: lai_to_the_sound
