The 15th edition of the Poetry Competition organized by the Fundación Jesús Serra begins

"The Grupo Catalana Occidente foundation will also hold the 3rd edition of the Special Award for Lifetime Achievement and will feature a judging panel made up of figures from the world of culture, such as Andrea Valbuena, Carlos Zanón, Elena Medel, David Castillo and Ricardo Fernández Aguilà. "

On the 15th anniversary of the creation of the Fundación Jesús Serra Poetry Competition, the Grupo Catalana Occidente Company opens a new edition with the aim of promoting poetic creativity. The competition, whose name honours the insurance group's founder, is unique in its category and has become a benchmark for lovers of the genre.

All age groups from 10 years of age can apply for the international poetry award in three categories: from 10 to 13 years of age, with a prize of €800; from 14 to 17 years of age, with a prize of €1,500 and, from 18 years of age, with a prize of €2,500. Works written in Spanish and Catalan can be submitted for the award and their literary quality will be assessed. The admission period will be between 7 February and 27 April.

Since 2020, the Fundación Jesús Serra has also recognized the poetic careers of already established writers whose work forms part of our literary imagination through the Special Award, with a prize of €5,000. Since it was organised for the first time, the poets Feliu Formosa (2020) and Antonio Colinas (2021) have been the recognized poets. 

The judging panel, made up of the writer Carlos Zanón, the poet Andrea Valbuena, the writer Elena Medel, the writer and journalist David Castillo, and Professor Ricardo Fernández Aguilà, will be responsible for selecting the Poetry Competition's winning works, as well as the writer who will be recognized with the Special Award.

In addition, the Fundación Jesús Serra, in agreement with the ACEC (Catalan Writers' Association), works to bring poetry closer to young people through other initiatives. In this regard, the project “Poetize yourself. Poetry at school” brought poetry recitals to the classrooms of different schools and institutes with the help of poets Josep Pedrals and David Castillo, thus encouraging poetic creativity.

The Fundación Jesús Serra feels honoured to award these prizes, which have been applied for by more than 15,000 people from all over the world, throughout their existence. Over 90 people have been awarded, including figures such as Mario García Obrero, who after being the winner of the Fundación Jesús Serra Competition in the children's category in the 2015 edition, and the youth category in 2017 and 2019, was awarded the Félix Grande National Youth Poetry Award, at just 17 years of age.

The names of the winners of the three categories for each of the two languages, in addition to the Special Prize, will be announced in June. You can follow all the latest news about the Competition on the Fundación Jesús Serra social media profiles with the hashtag #ConcursoPoesíaFJS or on the website https://www.fundacionjesusserra.org/concurso-poesia.

A video summary of the 14th Poetry Competition's award ceremony is attached to this link.

The judging panel of the 2022 Fundación Jesús Serra Poetry Competition

Andrea Valbuena holds a degree in English Studies from the Complutense University of Madrid. She began writing poetry and shared her first poems by creating a still-active blog, called Brevedad. Through social media, Andrea began to earn her place within literature and managed to self-edit two poetry collections. 

In 2016, she wrote Magoa and won the 1st Valparaiso Poetry Prize, which allowed her to publish her work for the first time. In 2018, she published her second poetry collection, Si el silencio tomara la palabra. In March 2020, she published her latest poetry collection, Lagrimacer o el acto de derramarse, this time with Verso y Cuento (Penguin Random House).
She has also collaborated in publications such as the Maremágnum magazine or Con Pluma y Plomo, by the Complutense University of Madrid, and in numerous events at national and international universities. With Elvira Sastre, she has taken poetry to classrooms throughout Spain, and has performed on several occasions in Latin America. 

Carlos Zanón is the author of several poetry books, of the novels Nadie ama a un hombre bueno, Tarde, mal y nunca, Brigada 21 prize for the Best First Novel of the Year, and finalist for the Silverio Cañada Memorial, Giallo e dell Noir (Italy), and Violeta Negra (France) awards; No llames a casa won the Valencia Negra prize for the Best Noir Novel of the Year, and Yo fui Johnny Thunders, won the Salamanca Negra, Novelpol and Dashiell Hammett prize, as well as the book of short stories Marley estaba muerto. With Taxi, he was established as one of the most important authors in Spanish literature.

In 2019, he published Problemas de identidad, a continuation of the Carvalho series by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán. In 2022 he has just published the novel Love Song. His narrative work has been translated in the United States, Germany, France, Holland and Italy. He collaborates as a columnist and literary and musical critic in newspapers, magazines and cultural supplements.

Elena Medel is a writer from Cordoba particularly dedicated to the field of poetry. She has published the collections of poems Mi primer bikini (2002), which received the 2001 Andalusian Youth prize, awarded by the Andalusian Youth Institute; Tara (2006) and Chatterton (2014), which won the Loewe prize in their Young Creation category. She is also the author of the books Vacaciones (2004) and Un soplo en el corazón (2007). Her poems have been translated into German, Arabic, Armenian, Slovenian, Basque, French, English, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Swedish and Swahili. 

Her work appears in numerous recent poetry books. As a storyteller, her stories have also been published in various anthologies. In 2016, she received the Princess of Girona Foundation Arts and Letters Award.

David Castillo is a Catalan poet, founder in 1989 of the cultural supplement of the newspaper El Punt-Avui, after collaborating in major national newspapers and magazines during the eighties. He was director of the magazine Lletra de canvi for eight years and served as a professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona for five years.  He has 
organized different poetry cycles and was founder and director of the Barcelona Poetry Week in 1997.  In September 2017, he took over as chairman of the ACEC (Catalan Writers' Association).  

He has the highest distinctions in Catalan literature, from the Sant Jordi prize for novels, the Carles Riba for poetry, the Crexells for the best novel of the year and different Atlántida awards as a literary writer. Some of his most noteworthy works include Game over, El cielo de infierno, Espalda desnuda, Sin mirar atrás, Downtown, Poesía, Contracultura, Barcelona and El túnel del tiempo.

Ricardo Fernández Aguilà, born in Barcelona, has been a professor and writer. A graduate of Hispanic Philology, he is the author of Un Fernandes entre banderas (2014), Un profesor se despide (2017) and online stories Un entender no entendiendo (2012-2013).

He has also done introductory studies and translations in the books El diálogo como el inconsciente: Antonio Machado by Antoni Pascual Piqué (2009) and 32 poemas by Màrius Torres. His project El despertar de la conciencia a través de la poesía (The awakening of the consciousness through poetry) has travelled to cities such as Barcelona and Madrid in search of the inspiration of poetry for the different stages of life. For more than forty years, he has been a secondary school and baccalaureate teacher, as well as a translator, especially of children's literature.