Anna Gas

- Spain -

Anna Gas Serra (Barcelona, 1996) is a Catalan writer with a degree in Literary Studies and Psychology from the University of Barcelona. The "Premi Joan Duch de poesia per a joves escriptors" (Joan Duch Poetry Award for young writers) led to the publication of her first book of poems, Crossa d'aigua (Editorial Fonoll, 2017). The second, Llengua d'àntrax (Edicions del Buc, 2019), won the "Premi Josep Maria Llompart de poesia" (Josep Maria Llompart Poetry Award) in 2020 as part of the "Premis Cavall Verd” (Green Horse Awards) awarded annually by the AELC to the best published poetic work. It has been included in several anthologies since 2018 and has been translated into English, Spanish, Italian, Galician and Serbian. She has taken part in various literary festivals both nationally and internationally and is one of the most promising up-and-coming figures on the Catalan poetry scene. In 2020 she won the "Premi Mercè Rodoreda de contes i narracions” (Mercè Rodoreda Award for short stories and narratives), with which she published El pèndol (Edicions Proa, 2021), her first collection of short stories.

“Anna Gas has been able to find and present a very personal style based on tradition, and without a doubt is set to produce great work in the future. A proclaimed writing style in passages that both break and mark the rhythm, verses that begin obsessively decasyllabic, but which end up breaking free to give way to short verses that are steeped in the rhythm of the subject matter. Simple and recognisable, it offers the reader a "chromaticism of their own", as Abraham Mohino says in the foreword. A voice of her own in the universe of young poets who have been making a strong comeback lately”.

- Meritxell Matas, Caràcters Magazine: "El regust fèrric de les paraules" [review of Crossa d'aigua by Anna Gas]"

“Gas constructs a poetics of paradox based on the resignification of the gaze and the dissolution of an organless body, as Deleuze and Guattari announced. [...] Gas's poetry is constructed on the basis of paradox, the forged and organless body, language as a reflective and metalinguistic centrality, and the other as a threat and condition of possibility”.

- Pol Guasch, Núvol: https://www.nuvol.com/musica/la-llengua-emmetzinada-61508

More about the poet

Poetry

29th July II / 29 de juliol II

around the borders of the brimming well
arise opaque walls
that would make any one woman believe
that she was drinking all alone.
between one wall and another,
kneeling over its rim, each woman
looks on the blurred reflection
of her own face.
each woman drinks avidly convinced
that she alone with every slurp of water
is drying up the well.
when one woman falls in
she finally gazes upon the faces of other women,
mouths puckered to the trough’s surface,
only to be seen from the bottom of the well.
because out of all of them
she is the only one
who did not know how
to stay out of
the well.
Translated by Jacob Rhodes
de les vores del pou ple
en surten parets opaques
que fan creure a una dona
que beu ella sola.
entre paret i paret,
agenollada, només
veu el reflex movedís
del seu rostre en l’aigua.
i beu convençuda que
la seva única xuclada és
la que va buidant el pou.
a la fi quan cau pot veure
amorrades altres dones
abeuradores, tan sols
des de ben al fons.
perquè de totes és ella
l’única que no ha sabut
mantenir-se fora
del pou.
From inside a pouch / Des d’un marsupi

There is only room for one
in the most impeccable cavity that is
the very first cloister of flesh. So, blessed ones
for this sincere act of enclosure,
among this never-ending shipwreck of a life,
we search for the original four walls where
love’s focal point once was one, and for one other,

both blinded by the root of an existence
only revealed to us on the other side of all the columns,
archways, and symmetrical courtyards.
But still, you revere the serial spilling
of misshapen shapes
melting in the illusory
reward of an immense array
of diverse mouths and hands:

the first rule we learn
is the twisted rubbing on exiting the womb.

The perfidiousness of a man who loves
knows no border or fortress that can hold him.
Translated by Jacob Rhodes
Només hi ha lloc per a un
en la cavitat impecable del primer
claustre de carn. Així, beneïts
per l'única enclosa sincera,
cerquem en perpetu naufragi
les quatre parets originàries on
el focus d'amor era un, per a un,

encegats per l'arrel d'una existència
que es revela enllà de les columnes
i els arcs i els patis simètrics.
Però venereu el vessament serial
de múltiples formes deformes
que es fonen en la recompensa
il·lusòria d'un immens assortit
de boques i mans diverses:

la primera regla que s'aprèn
és la torsió del frec uterí.

La perfídia de l'home que estima
no té fre ni límit que l'assetgi.
54 / 54

one nail drives out another until
it rusts and tarnishes
the flesh. I have felt
the firmness of frosted
skin in the shelter of this hand,
which I so ardently longed for.
yet forced to love in quicksand,
the brown tears of
restlessness corrupt the blood
of an innocent cheek
in watching its undoing,
the unlacing of our fingers,
treacherous, this icy hand that
can never keep you upright.
it slides away,
and now it is my hand of glass
that shatters.
Translated by Anna Gas and Jacob Rhodes
un clau en treu un altre fins que
es rovella i t’oxida
la carn. he temptat
la fermesa d’una pell
glaçada amb el recer que cercava
d’ardor aquesta mà.
obligada a estimar en un sorramoll,
les brunes llàgrimes
del desfici corrompen la sang
d’una galta innocent
en veure desfer-se,
del llaç inoportú dels dits,
traïdora, la mà de gel que no
et sosté mai dreta.
s’esmuny enllà,
i ara és la meva que
vítrica es desmembra.
2 / 2

desire blinds
the catastrophe behind a gesture
and words take on the rest.
I will show you each of
the runes I deposit
under my skin and you will admire
my asthenic garden.
there where I wanted a pantheon
I built a panoptic
and he inhabits the centre, master
of the treacherous light
which subdues, with his
intransigent judge’s eye,
each step I undo.
Translated by Anna Gas
el desig cega
la catàstrofe rere el gest
i les paraules fan la resta.
t'ensenyaré cadascuna de
les runes que sedimento
sota els plecs i admiraràs
el meu jardí astènic.
allà on jo volia un panteó
vaig construir un panòptic
amb ell al centre, amo
de la traïdora llum
que sotmet al seu
ull de jutge intransigent
cada pas que desfaig.
58 / 58

the scales ready to hand, weigh up
rejection sitting on the right
and affirmation on the left.
to the right, a hundred kilos
of straw or fifteen of lead win
over the four tiny
stones to the left.
clean out your vision with
hydrogen peroxide and look again:
to the left, three rubies
and a diamond sapphire win
over the vast inflammable material
on the righthand side.
the error was in lending
more weight to a dusty scale
rather than to the infiltrated beauty
being sucked through the crystalline lens’ libation.
Translated by Jacob Rhodes
sospesa la balança
amb el refús al plat dret
i l’afirmació a l’esquerre.
a la dreta, cent quilos
de palla o quinze de plom
vencen les quatre pedres
diminutes de l’esquerra.
frega’t la vista amb peròxid
d’hidrogen i torna a mirar:
a l’esquerra, tres robins
i un safir diamantí vencen
la basta matèria inflamable
de la dreta anèmica.
l’error es troba a fer pesar
més la balança polsosa
que la bellesa infiltrada
pel cristal·lí que liba.
/ (Untitled)

It is this cracked soil for cultivation. It is the path crossing through America’s desert that never ends. It is this aridness made reversible by the miracle of rain. It is seeing clearly up to the horizon, the retreat.
Is this not the wariness of an adult life? Drawing out inertia and freezing our tremor on the cliff edge instead of making the jump. It is this green mirage covered in spikes. It is our wariness of ever letting the bottle dry up. It is clearly seeing the horizon, the dirty fear that bridles me.
Unspoilt lands to explore: yet that eternal rubbing the eyes. Tons of hunger to exploit:
yet that love by my bed and window.
How slow time’s broom moves when it tries
to take away the ancestral painting of our
trail. How useless the rune of the trail.
Translated by Anna Gas and Jacob Rhodes
És aquest sòl esquerdat per conrear. És el camí que travessa un desert americà que no s’acaba. És l’aridesa reversible pel miracle de la pluja. És veure-hi clar fins l’horitzó, la retirada.
No és aquest compte, la vida adulta? Allargassar la inèrcia i congelar la tremolor de contenir-se a la vora del barranc enlloc del salt. És aquest verd replet d’espines. És la cautela de no deixar l’ampolla buida. És veure-hi clar fins l’horitzó, la por que bruta m’emmorralla.
Planes verges per recórrer: però aquell etern a frec dels ulls. Tones de fam per exhaurir: però aquell amor arran del llit i la finestra.
Que lenta l’escombra del temps quan prova d’endur-se la pintura ancestral del nostre rastre. Que inútil la runa del rastre.

Anna Gas

- Spain -

Poetry

29th July II / 29 de juliol II

From inside a pouch / Des d’un marsupi

54 / 54

2 / 2

58 / 58

/ (Untitled)