Poetic combat with Raquel Santanera and Oriol Sauleda

Raquel Santanera and Oriol Sauleda are two poets born in the 90s who have short arms so they can box with God. They have already met so many times, and after having varnished their duo recitals with humour, that in the end they said to themselves: What if we do things differently and fight? And they don't want to be provocative, they don't want likes and they don't want to make a happening, they just want to get in each other's faces with verses and make an effort to keep a straight face all the time. It was too lame to make a joke of agonal with engonal, let's leave it here.

Photo: Joan Garolera

With the participation of Raquel Santanera and Oriol Sauleda

Raquel Santanera

Manlleu, 1991. She is the coordinator of the poetry cycle in the Osona region, Els Vespres Malgastats and one of the three programmers of l'Horiginal, a mythical workshop of recitations and new literary attitudes in Barcelona. In 2015 she won Martí Dot with Teologia poètica d'un sol ús. With this first collection of poems he inaugurates Babaísmo, an effort to forge a new mythology of the poetic self that will continue to be present in his other two collections of poems: De robots i màquines o un nou tractat d’alquímia, winner of the Pollença Poetry Prize (2017) and Reina de rates: crònica d’una època, winner of the Miquel Martí i Pol Poetry Prize (2020). He has also written [[>) 4{8.732.º-PROTOCOL INTERPLANETARI, included in the book on new Martian narratives: Els coets venien com llagostes (Rockets came like grasshoppers).

Oriol Sauleda

Sant Pol de Mar, 1993. They call him a poet because the prejudices of the intellectual world mean that to say "minstrel" or "jester" would be a contempt for his figure. The popular pulse of Sauleda's verse, mystical but skin deep, with playful yet profound witticisms, allows him to captivate those who listen to him, regardless of the books he has on his shelf. His work is oral, not because he ignores the tools of writing or tradition, but because poetry is an unbridled flow that comes from within him, a kind of madness that brings him closer to the truth of children. Far from the diplomacy of chapels, his work is that of psychedelic nights in basements. A polyhedral look on the poetic fact that is seen in his books: El Paller (Viena, 2017); Llumeneres (Documenta Documents, 2021) and the latest I llavors em va dir. Un nou concepte del Tarot (Poncianes, 2023).

Thursdays of voice and word 2024 builds on the proposals of regularly invited creators: Blanca Llum Vidal, Eduard Olesti, Sònia Moya, Esteve Plantada, Grup Jordi Hurtado, Àrea de Lletres de la Bonne, PEN Català and Sodepau.