As a prayer, Blai Bonet performs in "Oda the rural town", a song to nature.
Beloved are
ants,
swallows,
murmurations
of starlings
which,
in October
blacken,
innumerably,
the open
and
clean sky.
And the eyes
of sparrows,
the berries
of the juniper,
ripe
hackberries,
nails
and fingers
full
of ink
belonging to boys
who play
under the lights
of the square.
And the marks
on the skin
of those whose livers
are ill.
Beloved are
all
the little
darknesses
in the town.
And bee
stings,
head
aches,
hammer
blows
on
fingers,
the currency
of pain. [...]
“Oda del poble rural” Comèdia, 1960
Translated by Richard Mansell.
(Santanyí, 1926 – 1997). Blai Bonet was a poet and novelist, born in Santanyí to a rural family in 1926. He studied at the seminary in Palma but a lung condition forced him to be hospitalised for a long period of time. His book Entre el coral i l’espiga (Between the coral and the ear of grain, 1952) formally broke with the tradition of the Majorcan school of poetry, which followed the writings of Joan Alcover and Miquel Costa i Llobera. Cant espiritual (Spiritual song, 1953) gave Bonet public recognition for the first time, winning the Carles Riba prize. Comèdia (Comedy, 1960) brought his work closer to social realism and closed a cycle. This was followed by L’evangeli segons un de tants (The gospel according to one of many, 1967), Els fets (The facts, 1974), Has vist algun cop, Jordi Bonet, can Amat a l’ombra? (Jordi Bonet, have you ever seen can Amat in the dark?, 1976), and more. In 1958 he published El mar (The sea), which has been turned into a film, which features memories of his childhood and youth, including his stay in the Caubet sanatorium. Judas i la primavera (Judas and springtime, 1963), Míster Evasió (Mister Evasion, 1969) and Si jo fos fuster i tu et diguessis Maria (If I were a carpenter and you were called Maria, 1972) are a type of diary, where a collage of texts brings us closer to Bonet’s personal universe in all its splendour. These were followed by La motivació i el film (Motivation and film, 1990) and Pere Pau (Peter Paul, 1992). He wrote commissioned works on art and wrote pieces for the press until the end of his life.
Comèdia brought Blai Bonet’s work closer to social realism of the Castilian poetry of Blas de Otero of those years. It is a collection of 19 poems in which he traces his biography, with unmistakable voice.
Guidebooks used to say that Santanyí "is linked to Palma by rail". Nowadays this is, rather incomprehensibly, no longer so. Paradoxically, lots of people travel around the island for large parts of the year, and yet the island has fewer kilometres of railway now than a hundred years ago. What is true is that the town was far from help and close to the sea, compared to others, and so it needed strong fortifications to protect it from attacks from Berber pirates, who kidnapped people and livestock. There are still remains of these walls in the town, and the most impressive is the so-called "Porta Murada" (walled gate). As well as pirates there has also been another enemy, the weather. Curiously this enemy has become a friend, and the area around Santanyí is one of the best tourist destinations on the island, not only because of its hotels but also because of the number of houses bought by people from Northern Europe, especially Germany. It is a small town but has produced many writers: Bernat Vidal, Blai Bonet, Antònia Vicens, Miquel Pons and Antoni Vidal i Ferrando are amongst the most well known.