Flags in the Sea

About Josep Lluis Aguilo

Josep Lluis Aguilo (born Island of Mallorca 1967) is a poet writing in the Catalan language. In 1986 he published his first collection of poems Cants d'arjau (Songs from the Helm). After an interval of eighteen years he published two further collections La biblioteca secreta (The Secret Library) and L'estacio de les Ombres (Season of Shadows) both in 2004. His collection Monstres (Monsters 2005) was awarded the Ciutat de Palma Joan Alcocer Poetry Prize in 2004 and in 2006 the National Critics' Prize for the best book of poems written in Catalan - the Spanish Pulitzer - while it also received a Special Mention from the jury of the 2006 Poetry Prize of the Association of Catalan Writers. In 2008 the present book Llunari (Lunarium) was winner of the Jocs Florals de Barcelona Prize and Josep Lluis Aguilo was appointed Poet Laureate of the City of Barcelona during the period 2008-2009. According to Pere Ballart in the preface of Six Catalan Poets (Arc Publications 2013) the sequence formed by his four most recent books embraces a kaleidoscopic poetic adventure that is culturalist in its symbols and in complete harmony with the eclecticism with which postmodernism juxtaposes the most learned and the most popular icons. In Aguilo's poetry therefore we find coexisting happily traditional rondeaux and the most bookish myths ... His poetry has appeared in several anthologies and has been translated into a number of languages. Anna Crowe born in Plymouth in 1945 is a poet and translator and the author of four poetry collections in English: Figure in a Landscape (2010) a Poetry Book Society Choice which was translated into Catalan and published in a bilingual edition as Paisatge amb figura (Ensiola 2011) and which also received the Callum MacDonald Memorial Award in 2011; Skating Out of the House (1997) A Secret History of Rhubarb (2006) Punk with Dulcimer (2006); one in Spanish / English bilingual edition: L'anima del teixidor (2000); and one in Catalan: Punk con salterio translated by Joan Margarit (2008). She has translated three of Joan Margarit's collections: Tugs in the Fog (Bloodaxe 2006 a Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation); Barcelona amor final (2007 Catalan / Castilian / English trilingual edition); Strangely Happy (Bloodaxe 2011). She has also translated Anna Aguilar-Amat's Musica i escorbut (Blesok 2006); with Iolanda Pelegri an anthology of Catalan poetry Miralls d'aigua (Light Off Water Scottish Poetry Library / Carcanet Press 2006); and for Arc Publications Six Catalan Poets edited by Pere Ballart (2013) and Peatlands by the Mexican poet Pedro Serrano (2014). Along with several other writers she was a founder member of StAnza the Scottish international poetry festival and was artistic director during its first seven years. She has twice won the Peterloo Open Poetry competition and in 2005 won a travelling scholarship from the Society of Authors.