Isabel M. Ortega i Rion
Isabel M. Ortega Rion (Tarragona, 1955) is a writer from Tarragona who has worked as a teacher of Catalan Language and Literature at the Esteve Terrades Secondary School in Cornellà de Llobregat. With a degree in Psychology and Philosophy, she has collaborated in the Philosophy and Gender seminar at Universitat de Barcelona (UB) researching the work of Simone Weil, whose collection of articles, Escrits sobre la guerra (1997) she has translated. In 1994, she published the novel Viatge d'anada. In poetry, she has published Enfilall (XXII Premi Comas i Maduell Ciutat de Tarragona, 2002), Runa plena (2004), Nómada (2009), Medusa (2013) and Cues de sargantana (2019). She has participated in several collective publications and given group and solo recitals.
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Olga Xirinacs has said of the author's poetry: "She has the gift of free expression and of containing ideas in the necessary condensation of verse. A difficult thing for poets, the condensation of the word, but I am happy when the literary game makes it possible to express ideas with fair, precise words, which are always new because of the combination of fullness, beauty and attention to detail in itself."
In some structurally well-thought-out works, Ortega has explored diverse registers and landscapes. It allows us to trace personal itineraries throughout the poems from a poetic self that does not impose its voice, but rather shares it with the readers. She often speaks to us from this unfolding trait 一in characters from classical mythology or from other areas, from the different selves of the author一 of the passage of time, of the memories that shape us, of existence. She is undoubtedly an artisan of words, who dominates and harmonizes with imagination, makes us feel the power of words and their furiously vital pulse.
AT SEA LEEL
AT SEA LEEL
My town smells like sorrel flakes,
it has the color of old honey or soft hazelnut
and the sea always receives a silver kiss.
My people are still the woman who spreads clothes
and consoles herself with songs and grumbles and does the chores
like an old woman, but with a bolero heart.
I have seen the last carts, the first automobiles;
I saw how they wiped out the crops by the river.
Along the river grows cement that rises against the clouds,
swallows the evenings and lights haughty lanterns.
My town brags in a wild dress
of cosmopolitanism. It's so simple to be rich
and modern if necessary! Just give up
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Your own subject matter, sell the rhythm of the heart
for a handful of haste a brand watch that will guide you to mercilessly.
However, my people
Have the velvety feel of an old book covered in dust
and the longing for a past that suddenly rises up and calls out
against the voices that lead to a mimetic future.
And I, who have renounced the old provincialism
fleeing to the newest mirage of the present,
I am left with the evening of a tearful autumn
and with the sound of bells that accompanies silently
the cobbled streets where time stands still.
I remain with the clay of the old facades,
seasoned peach, an embellished memory
who laughs, at these new times, because a cat meows,
because the rain returns and the pigeons take shelter
under steps that disturb things in vain ,
the cadenced march of unattainable moments.
Because time sometimes stops in my town.
Enfilall, 2002
REPRODUCCIÓ EN PEDRA DEL CAP DE MEDUSA
REPRODUCCIÓ EN PEDRA DEL CAP DE MEDUSA
La paraula va esculpir la pedra.
Continuo vetllant la ciutat destruïda
i retinc el secret de deus i demiürgs,
de l’horror silenciat,
del desvari sinistre dels herois.
He estat monstre, enemiga, victòria
saquejada, assassina abatuda. Però
la mort no és finir, és restar confinada
a la llinda del temps, forastera.
Llegir més...
Mireu-me sense por, només sóc màscara.
Els meus ulls no fereixen sinó en el mirall
on cadascú s’observa: soc mite i soc enigma.
Ara la pedra cisella les respostes.
Medusa, 2013
ytiC
ytiC
The city turned upside down in puddles of rainwater
it looks like a mirror: sedaçaf, seinoclab. All light
against the night, stars like lanterns on boats
that slip along the roadstead. Everything roars like the sea
Asleep, I would like to dive into it, embrace it
the friendly water, dissolve me, be the air bubble
that populates a silent route. All breath,
all lightness
like a dreamless dream.
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I see myself looking up, looking down, who I am
a body of water, fish and bird, an urban siren,
and I feel this disturbed happiness
that only sad people have.
Nomad, 2009