It's been said...
Vindication of Verse
It can’t be wholly coincidental that the last two books of poems by Miquel Bezares (Llucmajor, 1968) should include the word vers (verse) in their titles (Versllum (Versus Light), 2000, and El convers (The Convert, which he is now presenting). The verses written by Bezares are also verses to be listened to, but listened to through the eyes. It’s a bit like this question of Derrida’s différence: his difference is only perceptible on the written page, where the typesetting becomes as significant as the rhythm, the rhyme and more. This path (initiated by Junoy and Papasseit) has not been much explored in the Catalan tradition and is, in general, marginalised in the poetics embraced by the literary establishment. In the case of Bezares, however, unlike the early members of the Catalan avant-garde, the typographical arrangement on the page doesn’t have a strictly mimetic function but rather presents dispersions of sense, analogous but not equivalent to those that can be achieved through strictly phonetic procedures.
Melcior Mateu. "Vindicació del vers", Avui Cultura (17/07/2004).
The Poet's Word
About L'espiga del buit (The Sprig from the Void)
The title of the book, L’espiga del buit comes from a poem in my last collection Anvers (Obverse, 2006). I see the collection, which was awarded the Maria Mercè Marçal Prize, as a hinge book and, at the same time, as a frontier book. On the one hand, it comes from what I’ve called Tríptic del Vers (Triptych of Verse), which consists of the volumes Versllum, El Convers and Anvers, to which it owes reminiscences and echoes like, for example, the cuts in verse, the vertigo of some typographic abysses and unruly punctuation. On the other hand, however, it heralds a new road: my present poetic state, which might be summed up in the idea that the void that shaped my Tríptic del Vers has striven to become a full, fruitful and well-rounded void. The tension between fear and enthusiasm, which are constants in my poetry, emerges in my present book, which I have tried to construct not from certainty but from questioning. Amorous passion which is at once passion for the poetic word guides me once again along this new path.
About Anvers (Obverse)
I have always believed that any of my works in verse should have been able to make up part of one whole book. Perhaps I have not had the skills to bring out the link or to offer the reader the pretext but, for me, it has never been verse that is a stranger to its preceding verses and I have never wanted to write out of eccentricity. I see myself now, moreover, as having the obligation of recording in these few words that the book you have in your hands, reader, is the last one in a Tríptic del Vers, which also consists of my previous two books of poetry, Versllum (2000) and El convers (2004). These are the concluding verses of a whole that is not a whole in my present book, which should have, if the future is not unkind to me, still more words to be written...
