Jocs Florals
Barcelona is celebrating its Jocs Florals 2021, a celebration derived from the ancient Roman games celebrated to honor the deity Flora (ludi floreales).
Barcelona Town Hall’s website has information on this in Catalan and Castilian. This brings up the difficulty of translation, of course, but it seems to me interesting to point up the fact that the website (this year, in any case) includes a selection of the poems that were presented to the competition for last year’s event. Obviously those who read Romance languages will have an advantage here, but my suggestion is that, if interested, once you reach the website (at https://www.barcelona.cat/barcelonapoesia/ca/jocs-florals
) you might want to scroll down or in-page search for “llibre dels jocs florals 2021” without the quotes. This will take you to the event’s book (llibre or libro).
You can
then search inside the book for “selecció de poemes any 2020” without quotes. The
poems there were chosen by Ingrid Guardiola, who also introduces this section
of the book. The poems will speak for themselves of course. But personally I find
many interesting surprises in the lines chosen. Enjoy!