Everything Salvat-Papasseit (and more) in one giant wooden box

BarcelonaJoan Salvat-Papasseit He is the poet of eroticism and rebellion, of "long live life" even when death seems to have him cornered. He is the fleeting poet who remains eternally among us, both amorous and elegiac. He always returns to anticipate our future. All the longing for tomorrow"If I can never get up again, here's what awaits me: You will remain, to see how good everything is: Life and Death."

Now we have him again, this time with an innovative formal approach, an elegant nod to the avant-garde spirit: his poetry collections have been transformed into a giant box. This is a daring and successful publishing initiative that brings together Papasseit's six poetry collections in a European beechwood case, a piece conceived by designers Salvador Saura and Ramon Torrente and illustrated by the painter Parrot ShepherdThe books include an introductory essay by Ferran Gadea Gambús, the rights to which were already granted free of charge to Barcino publishing house for a prior independent edition.

This box-case, which won third prize in the bibliophile category from the Ministry of Culture, has been produced in a limited edition of 300 copies. It's a collector's item, also containing a folder with a hand-signed graphic piece by Perico Pastor, screen-printed in three colors. Vicenç Cases, of AQC Editors, is the driving force and final creator: "I wanted to create a unique artistic piece that also allows for comfortable reading of the poems, since each book can be removed." Why wood? "Behold: I have stored wood on the dock," wrote Salvat-Papasseit.

It's not, therefore, one of those bibliophile books for a lectern, the kind you look at but don't touch, that are merely pretty, but an object to touch and handle. "To bend down and splash around in, which is, as the Bible says, what Yahweh did when he created the Earth," explains Perico Pastor. A few weeks ago, in his studio in Poblenou, Perico opened this box for me, containing all the poetic magic of Salvat-Papasseit, where he has drawn two lovers embracing with a ship in the background. This is the graphic motif that adorns the books inside. On the outside, a flock of seagulls flies over the port. The poet's universe in two iconic images.

Poetry isn't for the rich.

A seducer always on alert, lover and friend, intuitive and intelligent self-taught man, working-class intellectual, popular avant-garde figure, a century later Salvat-Papasseit continues to captivate readers and transcend generations. "He made poems like someone making an omelet," admires Perico Pastor, who doesn't believe in visionary artists, but in those who are content to eat a hot meal every day. Years ago, he explained this to the students of the Joan Salvat-Papasseit Institute: "He was one of us, an orphan; his father died falling into a ship's boiler. Poetry isn't for the rich, but you can earn some money. It lifts you out of poverty."

For Salvat-Papasseit, it was the passport to fulfillment, to freedom. "Salvat-Papasseit made friends with everyone and took advantage of everyone," Ferran Gadea tells me. He transmitted that vital empathy and sympathy to his verses. That's why they still penetrate us so easily, subtly, as if their intimate and playful gaze were our own, as if we were strolling together through the port or along Barceloneta beach, as if they were singing or reciting in our ear.

Stored in the box, the six poetry collections have been reproduced with all the illustrations from the original editions, that is, with the drawings by Joaquim Torres-Garcia and the portrait that Rafael Barradas made of the poet for Poems on Hertzian Waves, with the works of Ramon Campany for The conspiracies –the Catalanist book– and with the figurative and allegorical images of Josep Obiols for The poem of the rose on the lips and for the posthumous compilation Little Bear.

If Perico Pastor sees Papasseit primarily as a craftsman of poetry, a working artist, Ferran Gadea narrates his evolution from the orphaned child confined at age 7 in the Naval Asylum to the tubercular adult confined to a spa, from the self-taught libertarian youth who held a thousand jobs and a thousand journalistic roles like Gorky—to the avant-garde activist poet simultaneously influenced by and emancipated from all the "isms" by way of Maragall: sonorous language, vital and festive optimism, poems like songs.

Above all, a friend to his friends—and he had many—it is through them that he delves into and immerses himself in literature: first Joan Alavedra, Emili Eroles, and Antoni Palau; later, once mentored by Xènius—yes, Eugenio de Oros He gave his first cultural job—the aforementioned Torres-Garcia and Barradas, and Tomàs GarcésJosep Obiols and many others. All those who passed through the Galeries Layetanas, of which he was a pillar of dynamism. Patrons soon arrived as well: the Terrassa industrialist Emili Badiella and the industrialist and art collector Lluís Plandiura.

"The whole secret of my optimism... comes from what I have suffered greatly," wrote Salvat-Papasseit. Josep Maria de Sagarra He remembered him thus: "The grave was three steps away, and he thought about life, and he believed in life desperately." Married to Carme Eleuterio and father of two daughters, when he was confined to the sanatorium in Les Escaldes, in the Alta Cerdanya region, he likely fell in love with a French nurse, and from this experience the wonderful book was born. The poem of the rose on the lips. Death took him, and life too.

"Deeply religious"—an aspect usually overlooked: he declared himself "a suffering Christian, a socialist"—and a radical Catalan nationalist—among his friends was Daniel Cardona—Salvat-Papasseit will soon provide us with another surprise: previously unpublished works by Ferran Gadea himself, along with those of Jordi Cornude and Jordi Cornudella, which were in the family's possession, will be released.