My name is Marià Villangómez Llobet and I was born in the town of Eivissa on 10 January 1913. In ascertaining this much, we might find the beginning of an answer to a question that I myself shall have to answer: who am I? I’ll leave aside as inconsequential the day and month of my birth. The early attributes of a life and the path one sets out on don’t come from a day or a month. Neither were the stars and their designs in fantastic constellations – or the impetus of their movement – remotely concerned about my way of being in the world or my destiny. The year, however, was of singular importance. 1913: this means that my eighty-one years have run through most of the twentieth century in a series of dreadful human upheavals and rapid changes at an ever-increasing rate. If we view the transformation from my homeland, we find the same process in the shift from the ancient and slow-moving Eivissa of my childhood and young manhood to an island marked by the growing presence of the tourist industry. It is possible that the condition of the islander, the Mediterranean dweller, has had its influence on my personality.

And on my poetry? Someone has spoken of an “islander poet” as if that were an essential attribute. I see a limitation here and, moreover, I suspect that the poet would have existed and would most probably have been born in other geographic circumstances. He would have had the same feelings about the land, the landscape – another landscape – and, when all’s said and done, the peasants and sailors of Eivissa would have been replaced, without his being aware of it, by farmers from other fields or workers from strange cities. It is also true that I’ve never felt any special attraction for the Semitic layers (Punic and Arab) of my island but have looked more, from my small, much-loved Mediterranean world, to the north, to Catalonia and the patchy shaping of Europe and its culture. Ever since I was a small boy, when I used to pore over at books with old photographs, I was more thoroughly seduced by Gothic cathedrals – to give one example – than by the monuments, which are also expressive and beautiful, of exotic countries.

Let’s move on, though, to the first part of the already-recorded facts, to my two surnames. I come from an old island ancestry. I am from Eivissa and so, too, were parents and grandparents. Of my eight great-grandparents, seven were from Eivissa and one, the one who gave me my first surname, was from Castile, a military man – we have his portrait as a commander – who married and died in Eivissa. The names of the other seven lineages belonging to the island are quintessentially Catalan: Llobet, Tur, Calbet, Ramon, Ferrer, Planells, and Llombart.

My paternal grandfather, one brother of my maternal grandmother and one of my mother’s brothers were pharmacists. My father was a doctor, as is my older brother, while the brother who came after me is a chemist. My youngest brother also studied medicine. I was the only one who opted for the arts, or who was made to opt for the arts by my father, who saw my inclinations. I had obtained my Baccalaureate in the arts by the age of fourteen. I studied for it in Eivissa but there was no secondary school then (now there are six) and I had to sit for the exam in Palma and, for the advanced certificate in Múrcia. My error was to go on to study Law, a degree that has been no use to me. I didn’t enjoy studying Law and was even less enthusiastic about engaging in any kind of legal work. This, however, gives a small clue which helps me to deduce who I am and what I am. In any case, the five years I spent studying in Barcelona were important in another way because they decisively favoured my starting out on the path of Catalan culture and letters. These are the close roots. However, I can say that, like any other individual, I am the fortuitous result of the coming together of a host of unknown instances of chance that have sought me out over innumerable generations. Looking out from the pinnacle of the convergence of so many uninterrupted steps is one of the things that make me dizzy.

I worked as a teacher and have been responsible in meeting my professional commitments. Then again, I suspect that I have been contemplative and indolent. It’s surprised me, now that the years have gone by, to see the bulk of my published works, although this is relative. I’m shocked by the persistence of human cruelty and in the midst of it all have sought some refuge wherein I’ve been able to enjoy long days of the best kind of calm. A question, a desire, non-conformism, non-acceptance, limits, firmness … And the thought that, perhaps, we consist in the fact of not being able to venture too far into alien zones of shadow.

I started writing poems when I was about thirteen or fourteen. I don’t remember why. I wouldn’t have known why either. I read a lot and was interested in other people’s poetry. I began there and from a strange restlessness. Poetry isn’t a personal invention but I suppose that even if I’d been completely ignorant of the poetic tradition, I would have felt I was lacking an indefinable something, the finality in certain predilections of the word. Even an unschooled peasant of the island could grow in its tradition and, never having heard of poetry, unaware of the word itself, was agitated by this inner need: “I shall keep taking solace / moving through its other realms / and forgetting you slowly / although recalling you at times”. Or, perhaps: “now that our hour has come / when we’ll have to live unremembered: / I am taking with me longing / if you have not kept it for yourself.” I also felt claims arising in me, together with love and gratitude, for the Catalan word. For a long time I thought I’d only write poetry. Prose came later. I’ve never been a professional writer so I chose other activities that had no relationship with literature. I refer to the early years, which contained the momentum of what follows, and I’ve mainly described specific facts on the basis of which it is possible to glimpse an answer to the questions put to me.

Copyright © 1994 Institució de les Lletres Catalanes