Advertisements
Q: You were interested in literature and drawing from an early age, but it was only when you were 20 that you began to write as such. Where does this need to write come from?
A: It all goes back to high school. They punished me a lot. I repeated the first and second of ESO and in third I went crazy. The option they had was not to enter the class so as not to disrupt normal development. They locked me in the library and there the only thing I had were the books around me and, giving up that reading, I was assuming that the time ahead would be unstoppable. I started reading Lazarillo de Tormes and a few more books until I get a taste for them. This taste, the seed for reading, is born there.
Advertisements
A: No, never. Poetry is what best suits my temperament. She is very spontaneous and captures specific moments. A novel requires a discipline that I cannot provide.
A: Poetry has a connection to the processes of your life. It's not that I write a diary, but by writing poetry I am recognizing my own expression and little distance from my everyday life. Therefore, deep down my plan with poetry is the recognition of who I am.
A: Pff… well look, I would tell you two that are fundamental. The first thing is to be a reader, because I believe that without reading there is no writing. That basic one. The second would be the ability to observe. In other words, if you are walking with some friends and stop near a tree because you see something unusual, stop even if your friends are walking away.
Q: Why does everyone these days seem to write poetry or be interested in it?
Advertisements
A: I think it's through social media, because before everyone wrote something, but networks with overwhelming projection and continuous information (day after day) make us see a series of writings, styles and poses. In fact, maybe they existed before, but they didn't have this speaker. Another option is that a certain status is seen in poetry and as a kind of entry into a social club, being “cool”, having that title of “poet”.
ApostasyXII RNE Prize for Young Poetry and Literary Awards
Q: You rise in 2020 with nothing more and nothing less than the RNE Young Poetry Prize. It's been 3 years since then. Tell us what your reaction was when you received the call.
A: Well, very happy, because although the prizes cause a fight, a stir, an intrigue. Although there is the possibility of publishing without awards, being recognized with one, the benefit for the writer is that it will have a certain critical interest, it will spread with a certain prestige and in the end it is an important showcase. Now, you shouldn't be obsessed with an award because winning one is already a lot. The normal thing is to not win anything.
Q: Did you feel imposture or fear when working on future work?
A: No, yes, it is demanding because I know — with the humility that needs to be said — that it is a book that maintains a regular line. Now what I write has to overcome Apostasy. This is how I demand it. So I don't see the imposture. I don't see other factors either, but I see the requirement.
P: Apostasy It means publicly abandoning a religion. Why this title?
A: Because it is a rejection of a faith. I have been in communities, church circles for about 3-4 years and there I saw an imposture and an enigma through cheap verbiage, where smoke was sold [sonríe]. I wanted to face it. Being a circle where he didn't belong, he wanted to attack him and create some kind of fight. Maybe uselessly, but that reason for writing seduced me.
Q: It's a lyrical collection of poems. You've always worked more on the rhythmic side than the thematic side.
A: It happened randomly. As for technique, I like the rhythm of the hendecasyllable and such. But the content was in blocks and without planning, which is how things sometimes happen. I faced the figure of God, then I played with alternating the commandments and there were already two sections.
Q: And in the third you introduce love.
A: Of course, love because despite all that rejection from previous blocks, I didn't want it to be a hate book. I wanted to add that fresh air. Love is what saves any book from oblivion.
Q: On the thematic level we find that presence of God, which is also linked to the title itself. Has religion always caught your attention?
A: Well, as a cultural phenomenon, yes. Anthropologically, this need to anchor our ideas of the world a little in transcendence. From agricultural cities, down to the smallest details, right? This interests me as cultural, human thought. Its aesthetics and its magic.
Q: You write: “My faith is in the poem with oxygen / being able to feel alive / looking up from the page…”. What collection of poems have you read lately that makes you not want to look up from the page?
A: cosmic cornerby Ernesto Cardenal.
Q: If you could only choose two topics to always write about. Which would be?
A: [Sighs and smiles] I would say one of them: love. A love without sentimentality, because poetry in the reality that is constructed when it is written, is already written for a certain vocation and there is already love there. So, as there is a predisposition to write about this. Measuring yourself with the measure of love on a piece of paper makes one great. And so I couldn't tell you the theme, but the concept; a contemplative poetry That is, something short like a breath.
Influence of Latin American literature and literary awards
Q: Influence of Latin American literature on you. What did it give you? I know you greatly admire Bolaños' life, his calamities.
A: The authenticity of living outdoors. The soap opera the wild detectives of Bolaño is traveling through Mexico, living intensely, an idealistic sense of expressive revolution and facing everything, overwhelming. I really like this combative spirit in writing. Then, I also highlight Ernesto Cardenal, because I think that as a monumental work, cosmic corner, has no rivals. Argentinean Juan Gelman seems great to me. In the college study plan, for example, there are Cortázar, Borges, Bioy Casares. It's just that, after all, 90% of literature in Spanish is in America and you necessarily have to go there.
Q: Which Latin American authors had a direct influence on your poetry or poetic work?
A: At first, Bolaño as the gateway. Then I became independent and Gelman and Borges came in. Pff… your wisdom seems unique to me.
Q: Do you follow what is being done in Latin America on a poetic level?
A: Not much, but because I don't see there being a very clear bridge. What I find and discover is through the networks and through you, who perhaps talk about someone, but little else.
Q: Why do you think Latin American poetic voices are so ignored, because the same thing certainly doesn't happen in the narrative?
A: Maybe we are guilty of individualism, we look at our navel and don't even read our partner. But look, the last two editions of Loewe, there are two poets from there who are great. There is a discovery, but it is not entirely because poetry is already being created there. It allows you to create generational awareness. This issue is so complex, encompassing political, economic, and editorial issues that it is completely beyond me.
Q: Are literary awards so important?
A: [Smiles] I don't think so. It is true that we all apply ourselves to some in our life. Sometimes they come out and sometimes they don't. The normal thing is that they don't leave, but that doesn't make you more or less. Ultimately, what defends your work is the book in your hands. The award is a consequence (or not) of a good deed. You don't need to go crazy or feel the envy you feel or the wars. Those teenage tantrums that feel like your mom won't give you the dessert you don't want.
Q: Many poets I interviewed propose that more artistic grants and fewer awards be generated. What alternatives do you propose to the prizes?
A: It's an option, of course. However, I think the prizes will continue to be there and the scholarships not so much. In the end, the prize is certain: you select a jury, there are 300 works and the best one, which is usually the “best”, goes on sale and is a good book. In a scholarship: how do you measure these scholarships?
Q: What do you think is the best of current Spanish youth poetry? And the worst?
A: Starting with the worst, I would say there is a lack of understanding. Maybe the portion of the pie we aspire to is small and those who get it, the people who don't get it, take it as an enemy. The worst part comes down to liking that sect, right? There are in Spain like islands of small groups, which have always existed but perhaps did not exist with the negative charge of speaking badly, tweeting something, making a podcast riddling someone. Pff… regrettable. The best thing for me are my new friends: Juan Diego Marín and Patricia Díaz Arcos. They are two absolute poets, fantastic and with great potential.
Recommendations, hobbies, influences
Q: Hobby or hobbies you have when writing.
A: Put me in the bottom Estes Tonne.
Q: Written references.
A: Manuel Francisco Reina, Álvaro García, Antonio Cabrera and Carlos Marzal.
Q: A word you love.
A: Poetry.
Q: A word you hate.
A: Pain.
Q: One that scares you.
A: Future.
Q: A verse that accompanies you.
A: Infinity is time on the skin…
Q: Literature is essential because…
A: It makes us create fantasies and make them come true.
Q: A work you wish you had written.
A: four blocksby Eliot T.S.
Q: An author or author you would go out drinking with.
A: Miguel de Cervantes.
Q: A prize you would like to win.
A: The Champions League with Málaga.
Q: A recommendation for anyone reading this interview.
A: The nobodiesby William González Guevara.