When such a long, profound us dies, the world that that us had built also dies. This is what happened to the poet Luis García Montero when life took Almudena Grandes, his wife of thirty years, companion in literature and his gaze on beauty. And he turned to poetry. Like you do with a doctor or a priest. He asked her for one specific thing: to give him back his sense of reality. «One year and three months» (Guanda) is the book that was born from it. The pages in which Montero learns to look at the empty sofa next to her, the refrigerator that no longer contains the things she liked, the turned off screen of the PC in the study…
We met him after the ceremony held at the Rendano Theater in Cosenza, where the poet received the Prize for Mediterranean Culture, Poetry section. He spoke to us slowly, with that kindness that people have who know what it means to lose. And he told us about thirty very rare years, in an era in which loves fade away or end in war…
«One year and three months» collects the poems written during the illness and loss of his wife Almudena Grandes…
«Poetry, in the case of such a great loss, helps us restore the meaning of life. Because in such a long love relationship, 30 years, an us is built. And the loss of this us also makes us lose the meaning of life. I asked poetry to give me back the sense of reality. In this case, the relationship with Almudena had permeated everything, our common passion for literature and our political ideas, our vision of the world, our way of living and raising our children. The loss of Almudena had destroyed everything. When I began to ask poetry to help me, I remembered many, many poems about death and so I came to understand that this experience, my pain, was not an individual thing, but a shared experience. Because living has always meant sharing our existence with death. Thus, I arrived at the idea of a general meaning of life shared with everyone.”
The book is divided into three parts that guide the path from illness to acceptance. How did you structure this emotional journey?
«I started writing the book during Almudena’s illness. The tone I wanted was reflective. An intimate thought. I didn’t think about formalities, but about internal reflections at a time when suddenly visits, hospitals, chemotherapy make some things that gave meaning to reality lose meaning. I believe love is a metaphor for the social contract. There is an I and a you that becomes an us, in coexistence. In our relationship, then, care was very important. There was not the domination of an ego over another ego, but the need to build an us. My children and I were taking care of her, but she was taking care of us while maintaining good spirits. He gave the impression that he wasn’t afraid, but he certainly was and he knew very well the gravity of his situation. He hid it for us. So we looked after her and she looked after us. This must be love and shared reality, beyond authoritarianism. The second moment is that of loss, the disappearance of us. Almudena was alive in my memory, but I had to accept that she was dead. I traveled, I went to cities and I remembered her there. Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Rome, cities we had lived together. I had to accept living them in memory. The book talks about this everyday life that is filled with meaning. When I watch television the sofa next to me is empty. In the fridge there are things that I like, but no longer what she liked. We must learn to dialogue with absence. The last part of the collection talks about a human experience that is not just mine. I learned that dying is normal, but that a thirty-year love story is very rare. Caring for a person until they die in your arms fills life with meaning. In the face of so much tragedy I am grateful for thirty years of happiness. There are loves that fade away, loves that end in conflicts. I have learned to be grateful to life for these thirty years of love.”
How does your poetry fit into the broader context of Mediterranean culture, as a bridge between different cultures and an expression of a shared experience?
«I am convinced that we live in a world where there is a dialogue between identities. In globalization there is a dynamic in which some identities feel threatened by others and there are also individualities that break the dialogue with communities. The Mediterranean has always been characterized by the coexistence of different cultures. I grew up on the coast of Granada and the metaphor I have in mind is that of a Mediterranean that unites countries and identities, but it is not the same thing to live in Spain or Italy or in an area strongly characterized by Islamic culture. I know there have been very many battles in history. I currently direct the Cervantes Institute, and Miguel de Cervantes lost an arm in the battle of Lepanto… I prefer to think of the Mediterranean as a bet on the future, between identities that want to live in peace and dialogue.”