The Fundación Jesús Serra announces the 14th edition of its Poetry Competition, and celebrates the 2nd edition of its Special Award

"The Fundación Jesús Serra, from Grupo Catalana Occidente, publishes the rules of the 14th edition of its Poetry Competition, as well as the 2nd edition of the Fundación Jesús Serra Special Poetry Award, which honours the career of a renowned author or writer. The jury, formed by Andrea Valbuena, Carlos Zanón, Elena Medel, David Castillo, and Ricardo Fernández Aguilà, will be in charge of assessing the works eligible for the competition."

The call for the presentation of original works eligible for the Poetry Competition promoted by the Fundación Jesús Serra, from Grupo Catalana Occidente, which rewards, above all, the quality of the works, will remain open form 1 February to 30 April. The winners will be announced in June.

Perpetuating the philosophy of Jesús Serra Santamans, founder of Grupo Catalana Occidente, for the last thirteen years, the Fundación Jesús Serra has promoted poetry through the prize award that bears its name, among other initiatives, to stimulate poetic creativity and, in turn, the pleasure of reading. For this reason, an international Poetry award was created, unique in its category, rewarding writing a poem and covering all ages gathered into three groups: 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. Eligible works can be written in Spanish and Catalan.

Another of the Fundación’s initiatives was creating the Special Award in 2020, an award that recognizes the career of a poet and rewards their work as a vehicle for artistic communication with a prize of €5,000. In the last call, the award honoured the poetic work of the writer, translator, and playwright Feliu Formosa.

The previous edition announced the inclusion of writer Carlos Zanón as a new member of the jury, and this year the Fundación Jesús Serra has added poet Andrea Valbuena to the project, who, together with writer Elena Medel, writer and journalist David Castillo, and Professor Ricardo Fernández Aguilà, will be in charge of assessing the works eligible for the competition.

Since its creation in 2008, 80 people have won the Fundación Jesús Serra Poetry competition, including noteworthy figures such as Mario García Obrero, winner in the children’s category in 2015, the youth category in 2017 and 2019, and who won the Félix Grande National Youth Poetry Award at just 17 years of age.

Over the past thirteen years, in addition to the call for the Competition, the Fundación’s work has led several initiatives to spread the art of poetry through different cultural activities aimed at schoolchildren and fans of culture in general. An example is an agreement signed between the Fundación Jesús Serra and ACEC (Catalan Writers’ Association), which launched the “Poetízate. Poesía en la escuela” programme promoting poetry at school, in which students from more than thirty schools attend poetry readings in their classrooms led by Josep Pedrals and David Castillo, thus encouraging poetic creativity.
 

The winners of the three categories for each of the two languages, in addition to the Special Award, will be announced in June in Barcelona. 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

In this link, you will find a video offering a taste of what went on during the 13rd edition of Poetry Competition Awards.

The jury of the 2021 Fundación Jesús Serra Poetry Competition

Andrea Valbuena graduated from the Complutense University of Madrid in English Studies and 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 Black Novel of the Year, and Yo fui Johnny Thunders won the Salamanca Negra prize, Novelpol and Dashiell Hammett, as well as the storybook 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. 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.