A poem by Ángeles Mora in Reykjavik
On the initiative of Reykjavik UNESCO City of Literature, in November 2016 the Cities of Literature were represented in the foyer space at the Icelandic capital’s town hall. Each city sent a poem by one of their leading writers, accompanied by an image. Granada presented a still-unpublished poem by Ángeles Mora, the winner of the Spanish Poetry Prize and Critics’ Prize in 2016. The title of the poem is “Cosas que suceden allá arriba”.
Cosas que suceden allá arriba
“Busqué en mis versos / el aire de la Alhambra, / y brillando surgió desde el olvido / aquella noche / de luna en los estanques y en tus ojos: / años ochenta, Alberti recitando / a Lorca entre arrayanes, / rumor de agua. / Tu voz roja en mi oído. / Altas torres guardando a los poetas.”
Ángeles Mora, who won the Spanish Poetry Prize and Critics’ Prize in 2016 for her collection of poems Ficciones para una autobiografía (Bartleby), was born in Rute (Córdoba province) but has lived in Granada since 1980, where she graduated in Hispanic philology at the city’s university.
She published her first poetry collection, Pensando que el camino iba derecho, in 1982, followed by La canción del olvido in 1985 and La guerra de los treinta años, for which she won the Rafael Alberti Poetry Prize, in 1989. In 2000 she published Caligrafía de ayer, in 2001 Contradicciones, pájaros (City of Melilla Prize and translated into Italian as Contraddizioni, uccelli by Edizioni dell’Orso, 2005), and in 2008 Bajo la alfombra (Visor). There are also two anthologies of her work: Antología poética (1982–1995), ed. Luis Muñoz, 1995, and ¿Las mujeres son mágicas?, with a prologue by Miguel Ángel García, 2006. 2005 also saw the publication of her Antología poética by the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes.
