Joan Alcover's «Desolació» at the Obrador d'Històries poetry marathon

Obrador d'Històries invites anyone to film themselves on their phone reciting their favourite poem and send it in by WhatsApp, giving their name, the title of the poem and of the book, who wrote it and where it was published. A poetry marathon made of ordinary voices.

I took part with «Desolació», by Joan Alcover: one of the harshest and most beautiful sonnets ever written in Catalan.

The recording I sent

Why this poem

«Desolació» is an elegy. The poet compares himself to a tree whose branches have been torn off one by one — and it is not a contrived metaphor, it is his life.

Joan Alcover lost his first wife, Rosa Pujol, in 1887. In 1901 his daughter Teresa died of tuberculosis. In 1905, his son Pere died of typhus. The poem was published in 1909, in Cap al tard, among the elegies.

And it was not over. Ten years after publishing it, in 1919, Alcover lost two more children —Maria and Gaietà— on the same day. All that was left of that life were these lines and one surviving son.

That is why it is so hard to read aloud without your voice breaking. And that is why I chose it.

The literary marathon is organised by Obrador d'Històries with the support of the Catalan Government's Department of Culture.