Lights Off Water XXV Catalan Poems

This anthology of 25 Catalan poems, one from each year from 1978 to 2002, presents a wide-ranging view of how the past quarter century has unfolded in the Catalan language territories. These poems reveal a long and deep-rooted tradition hitherto unknown because of the long years of the Franco dictatorship in which Catalan was a prohibited language. The 25 poems embrace a great variety of styles and tendencies, all of them confirming the fact that no dictatorship can suppress poetry.Love poems, poems of pain, longing, reflecting on the passing of time, everyday life and death appear here in the words of 25 different poets who offer 25 mirrors on a fast-flowing period in the history of Catalonia.

Anna Crowe is a translator and poet whose published collections include Skating Out of the House. She is the artistic director of Stanza, Scotland's poetry festival. Iolanda Pelegrí is a literary translator who specializes in Catalan literature at the Institute of Catalan Letters.