Gerard Vergés

I've already said elsewhere that I owe my discovery of the work of Gerard Vergés to Xavier Bru de Sala, who was literary director of Edicions Proa in those days and, without a doubt, a prime mover in the poet's being awarded the Carles Riba Prize in 1981. He also wrote the Prologue to L'ombra rogenca de la lloba (The Reddish Shadow of the She-Wolf). In 1982, the present writer was a mere wolf-cub who made it his business to buy all the poetry books he possibly could in the endeavour of learning "how to go about it", but even I could see clearly that a book like that one –a single poem of more than 300 verses signed by Romulus with an array of notes contributed by Remus– was radically original, atypical, unclassifiable and, with (or because of) all that, was a breath of fresh air in Catalan poetry at the time (when, it must be said, one didn't find much that might have been called exemplary). In fact, L'ombra rogenca de la lloba and its author were hard to pigeonhole then and they continue to be so even now, more than quarter of a century later.

The Appearance

The figure and the poetry of Gerard Vergés (I've come up through a tradition that clearly distinguishes between the two but, at the same time, besides the poetry, I've become increasingly interested in the human figure of artists, their biographies, their characters and their personal stories), both the figure and the poetry of Vergés, as I was saying, seen against the background of the rest of the fraternity, point to the trait of distinction rather than to that of similarity. And this might be neither good nor bad... or maybe it is one or the other. However, let us not jump too far ahead but go back, rather, to the point of distinction, of difference: to character and, hence, uniqueness. As far as the ordinary reader was concerned, on that Saint Lucy's Eve, twenty-seven years ago now, Vergés suddenly irrupted right at the top, bearing off the plum of the literary prizes in our poetic circles: without any previously recognised literary curriculum, without having been quoted, and without patrons who might have made him "ascribable". Furthermore, he made his appearance, as I have noted, with a long book consisting of only one poem, a piece that was also, among other things, meta-literary, playful, ironic and, at some points, even a spoof on himself. Beyond this particular book, Vergés' poetry had (and still has) a texture that is at once cultured and light-handed, ironical without ever seeming cynical, learned but not pedantic. This poetry, it is worth repeating, is hard to slot into familiar groups and trends. To top it all, he is an outsider (from Tortosa!) but I shan't be the one who, at this point, divulges the extent to which Catalan culture –including literary culture– is centralist. Then again, although this might seem anecdotal, one of the first things I learned about him, before as much as opening any of his books, was that Vergés was a pharmacist: in a tradition wherein the figure of the poet tends to be located in some fuzzy limbo between the models of Catalan-language-teacher-passing-though-poetry and dilettante rentier, that real-life profession, that other life among substances and formulas and laboratories made him –what would you expect?– more credible for me, less cardboard cut-out. However, the definitive touch came later but I was unaware of it until some time had elapsed because what happened was that, with his first book, Gerard Vergés came, conquered and went back, which is to say he came bearing no plan of conquest, or reform, or evangelisation of Catalan poetry, with no hot cakes to sell, no dogma to impose. That certainly was different. That certainly was something to be grateful for...

Eventually, I got more and more involved in this business of reading and writing and, together with two friends as irresponsible as myself, began to write reviews of Catalan books for La Vanguardia under the pseudonym of Joan Orja. Thanks to the magnanimity of Robert Saladrigas, we were taking on increasing responsibility, to the extent that we were being sent the galley proofs of books by winners of major prizes before their books appeared. The challenge was exciting. We had to discuss these works from scratch (in a hurry and with no other opinion to refer to) and the uneasiness over titles that we may have wished to avoid was amply compensated for by the joy of the "discoveries"... Thus it was that Gerard Vergés cropped up in my life for the second time when, in 1985, he was awarded the Josep Pla Prize offered by Edicions Destino, and it was the task of Joan Orja to review his Tretze biografies imperfects (Thirteen Imperfect Biographies). If you don't already know it, I fervently recommend this book. It was one of the surprises, one of the good memories I have of that stage as militant critic. In Tretze biografies imperfectes Vergés, the writer who'd set about getting Romulus and Remus to speak in verse, is a mocking presence behind the subjects of his biographies (from the Inquisitor Don Fernando Niño de Guevara to Circe, daughter of the Sun, by way of Giorgio de Chirico and the outlaw Panxampla) as a voice that is –yet again– cultured, intelligent, modest and ironic (I know you can't be ironic without being modest but so many folk arrogantly believe that they are ironic that it's worth repeating).
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