Baltasar Porcel. Jot Down Books. Seville, 2022
By Rafael Ruiz Pleguezuelos
Jot Down is without doubt the most popular cultural magazine in the world. It is also creating an editorial collection worth looking at. Jot Down is doing a great job of saving pieces that might have been forgotten and deserves a lot of our attention. They have a keen eye for literature and they were able to save the legacy of Baltasar porcel (1937-2009), an author from Majorca with a vast amount of work. Las manzanas de oro is the first of this series. It was originally published in 1980. Sergio Vila Sanjuan wrote the prologue. It is well-written and informative. It was described by Porcel at the time as an adventure novel. There is no shortage of adventure in its pages. On more than one occasion, it has been confirmed that it is a Byzantine novel in the debauchery and locations that characterizes it. It’s about the hunt for treasure and the discovery of wealth on a mountain. It is a reading feast.
John Peter Cosano. Spare. Barcelona, 2022.
By C. de la Rosa
Juan Pedro Cosano, a Jerez-born writer and lawyer, returns to his favourite era, Spain in the 17th and 18th century, to tell a story that is tinged with psychological intrigues and accurately described environments. Cosano’s meticulous documentation is evident once more when he tells the story about Carlos II, the so called Bewitched. He was a physical symbol for the inbreeding house of Austrians. The royal playwright launches an investigation into the alleged poisoning of Maria Luisa de Orleans (fiancée of Louis XIV) and keeps the reader alert.
Enrique Garcia-Maiquez. The Vane. Grenada, 2022.
By Remedios Sanchez
Enrique Garcia-Maiquez, who goes by the title ‘Verbigracia,’ compiles six of his poems, including haikus, and adds some that are not yet published. The mastery of classical forms, particularly the sonnet, the elegy, and popular stanzas like the seguidilla, is a skill Enrique Garcia-Maiquez is skilled at. A unity is seen among the six works plot of fate in relation to its deep religious attitude towards life. This is one of its distinguishing features, along with the game of irony that is evident in ‘Beam of light’ (1996) and ‘Inclination of my Star’ (published a little while back.
Antonio Cesar Moron. Granada, Nasrid, 2022
By Carlos Herrera Carmona
Theater of Alarm’ is built on two iron columns, ‘Of Politics’ and ‘Of Memory’. It’s as if these were two Hellenic treatises. Without filters, the dramatic text is postulated to be a direct denouncer. The author offers this urgent set of measures to support his political-social commitment, beyond the so-called metatheatre, document theatre and autofiction. The machinery functions as a battering ram directed at the great leaders and those who are on the brink of being dehumanized. These incisive and harsh x-rays of the past, present and futurity are not subject to retaliation. The succinct poetic edges of the past, present, and future will be presented in the form incisive verse. However, this should be handled with care. These thoughts are strategically scattered mantras. “Theatre, the life History cannot hide”, “Take their masks off!” To name just a few, they include “Now people are fickle as they are beaten”, and “Now people can be fickle because of their defeat”.
“Black Sheets: Red Forest” is already on the stage. We fly over territories such as Chernobyl’s gestation, love as a driving force during troubled times, and terrorism through an epistolary video and cinematographic flashbacks. This section is added to the discussion of the moral, psychic, and physical contamination of previous pieces. A retinue which once again depicts the disorientation and paralysis of an individual. The Encyclopedic character, literary quotes, and micro-monologues are inserted. As the plot develops, the characters walk in pain on the tightrope. Their lives are borderline on death. They wear straitjackets and gag while the irresistible fatum robs them of their freedom to choose. These are the ones who have cut the thread in order to escape the labyrinth. It depicts a group of people who are suffering from selfishness and lack mercy.
You will also notice the lack of stage directions. The text arrives limpid and enters the mind like a Trojan horse. Baudelaire warned that the suspense in each scene is a motivator for the reader to keep looking for the disaster, the unreparable thing that gnaws with its cursed teeth. Each painting is a new ‘fleur du mal’. As a titan, the author exposes the corruption, lies, and abuse of power by the fementidos. To remind us all that we are here, he has chosen to be in the middle of Hades. There is no distance. It is fiction. This irony leaves us more puzzled than it seems. The long shadow of Covid will soon appear, and it will be difficult to see any signs of hope. Even if you count the tragic ingredients, there is no room for catharsis due to the strength of this sewer. Already, the alarm of the playwright has been activated.
Joaquin Perez Azaustre. Granada, Esdrujula, 2021
By Gerardo Rodriguez Salas
Una Interpretacion is saved by the Esdrujula publishing company. This was the debut feature that won Joaquin Perez Azaustre in 2001 the Adonais award. The “painful feeling” of these verses can be found in this reissue. The book’s prologue, written by Pere Gimferrer and accompanied by the author’s note, as well as the epilogues by Ana Castro and Raquel Lanseros, gives it new life. It is “always valid and outdated”.
The aftertaste of fairy tales and myths is not pleasant. “There was once great war here” is a common saying. After a long postwar sleep, a beautiful girl awakens to find herself in deserts of dust, silence, and her shadow, which “is so alone that is not a shadow”. A boy wakes up to hear rain, a recurring image that calls him to his door, where he lurks like the boogeyman.
Azaustre, who approaches the past through the absence of his father, abandons the chair to the ghosts and dissidents of the past to gain a better understanding of the present and to rethink the future, is like Pascal Quignard, in his essay about Butes. Azaustre examines the loss of his father, who was a victim to patriotism as well as sterile conflicts. The transgenerational trauma is part of the narrative voice and the writing of it becomes a heritage. These poems rewrite Moldred’s myth and show that he is also victorious over his father. We witness the “hour of man” and his great gesture, a man who dances in the shadow of his father and moves away from myths and idealized knights.
Images that are repeated and often contradictory follow each other. The rain is one of them. It permeates every verse and represents either the deluge’s ravages or the silence that destroys and permeates. It can also be restorative. A “slow rain” is a type of “slow rain”, which escapes the hours, weaves, and history.
After the horrible image of the children’s funeral – whose graves were washed away by rain – there is still time for a new genealogy and new roots.
Two other central tropes are the party and light. These verses are about the recovery of the great community festival. Although the light is temporarily dimmed, transgenerational ties can be maintained through a pilgrimage up the hilly slope of light. The result is “our party/of abandoned children who dream of the sea”, “men that are alone but who unite and break the cage to fly free.” So a new sun rises for the old world. It is an open house. A garden where God “became woman” for a few days.
Azaustre offers us a place to embrace our past, again. It is also a place that isn’t far.
