TOMÀS GARCÉS I MIRAVET, THE CATALAN POET OF SONG

Today, The Grandma has been visiting one of her favourite places in Barcelona, Santa Maria del Mar. It is always a great pleasure to let yourself be enveloped by its majesty and spirituality. Centuries of history speak to us of a prosperous Barcelona, ​​open to the sea, where guilds and merchants brought renown to El Born -the neighbourhood where this unique building, so beloved by the people of Barcelona,​​ stands.

 

While visiting this fascinating place, he recalled the verses that Tomàs Garcés dedicated to it in the last century. 

 

Tomàs Garcés i Miravet was one of the most refined voices of twentieth-century Catalan poetry. Born in Barcelona in 1901, he was not only a poet but also a lawyer, literary critic, translator, editor, and journalist. Throughout a literary career spanning more than six decades, he became renowned for his musical language, emotional restraint, and deep attachment to the Mediterranean landscape and spirit.

 

Often referred to as the Catalan poet of song, Garcés developed a distinctive style built upon short, melodious verses and carefully balanced stanzas. His poetry combines the apparent simplicity of traditional folk songs with remarkable artistic sophistication. Rather than relying on dramatic gestures, his poems invite readers into a world of quiet beauty, memory, contemplation, and hope.

Although his early work shares certain features with the Noucentisme movement, Garcés gradually embraced a more symbolic and spiritual voice. His recurring themes include the passing of time, childhood, love, the sea, death, and the search for transcendence. Nature is never merely decorative in his poetry: it becomes a language through which human emotions and spiritual longings are expressed.

The Spanish Civil War profoundly affected his life. Forced into exile in France, he taught Spanish at the University of Toulouse before eventually returning to Catalonia. Despite the political and cultural difficulties of the post-war years, he continued to write, publish, and contribute significantly to Catalan literary life as both a poet and a critic.

 

Garcés maintained close friendships with major Catalan writers such as Joan Salvat-Papasseit and Josep Sebastià Pons, and he helped shape Catalan literary culture through journals, publishing projects, and literary criticism. His first collection, Vint cançons (Twenty Songs, 1922), established his reputation, while later works such as El caçador, La nit de Sant Joan, Escrit a terra, and his memoir El temps que fuig confirmed his place among the leading figures of modern Catalan literature.

Today, Tomàs Garcés is remembered as a poet whose work celebrates harmony rather than excess, silence rather than noise. His poetry reminds us that profound emotions often emerge through simplicity, and that beauty can be found in everyday landscapes, in memory, and in the quiet journey of the human spirit. His verses continue to stand as one of the finest expressions of Catalonia's lyrical tradition.

 

Tomàs Garcés reminds us that poetry does not always need grand gestures. Sometimes, a few quiet verses are enough to carry us across the sea, because in Garcés' poetry, the Mediterranean is more than a landscape: it is a way of understanding beauty, memory, and the human soul. 

 

More information: Associació d'Escriptors en Llengua Catalana

 

En quin vaixell, Santa Maria, aneu?

en quin vaixell de pedra blanca?
Les columnes s'ajunten; una proa es tanca
i les enlaira cap al cel.

Picapedrers el calafatejaren,
fa tant de temps i encara solca el mar.
Un dia amarg, i no ho sabien,
destral i teia descobrien
la màgica nuesa de la nau.

Hi vull pujar, Santa Maria.
Per quina escala haurà de ser?
A la fi del viatge ¿trobaré
la platja oberta on mai no mor el dia?

 

On what ship, Santa Maria, do you sail?

On what ship of gleaming white stone?
The columns draw together; a prow is formed,
and lifts them heavenward.

Stonecutters caulked her timbers,
so long ago, and still she ploughs the sea.
One bitter day, though they did not know,
their axe and torch unveiled
the vessel's magical nakedness.

I long to board her, Santa Maria.
By which stairway shall I ascend?
At journey's end, shall I find
the open shore where daylight never dies?

Tomàs Garcés i Miravet

More information: Santa Maria del Mar

 

Under the shadow and protection 

of the Star of the Sea, 
the people of Barcelona 

always found refuge.

Anonymous