Núria Albertí’s Children’s Poetry, a Metaphor for Humor and Irony

Abstract

Núria Albertí’s Children’s Poetry, a Metaphor for Humor and Irony Moisés Selfa Sastre (bio) and Enric Falguera Garcia (bio) Núria Albertí (Alicante, 1974) is one of the most prolific and ingenious authors in Catalan today, as evidenced by her recent literary career. Some of her works have even been translated into Spanish. She started her career as a poet in 2006 with the anthology of poems L’arca iris, a title that reflects her desire to break the mold by feminizing the normally masculine Catalan noun. Since then, Albertí has published sixteen poetry anthologies, constructing a poetic discourse based on humor and irony as basic resources of expression, as well as the introduction of multiple themes and the use of stanzas that are not usual in Catalan children’s poetry, such as haiku. In general, Albertí’s poems can be categorized into three main groups: (a) texts with predominantly classical themes in children’s poetry, such as bestiaries and poems that follow time cycles; (b) monographs focusing on a single theme, such as pirates, the legend of Saint George, or lullabies; and (c) anthologies of poems that include themes from children’s daily life, such as food, the night, adventures, or fear. The first group, so far, covers five of her works: Gri grill i altres animalades (Gri Cricket and Other Animateds; 2019), Poemes de fred i manta (Poems of Cold and Blanket; 2018), Poemes de flors i abelles (Poems of Flowers and Bees; 2019), Poemes de vent i fulles (Poems of Wind and Leaves; 2019), and Poemes de sol i mosques (Poems of Sun and Flies; 2021). Gri grill’s content reminisces that of bestiaries, with poems emphasizing the humorous and ironic tone of the animal world. At the same time, the poems also work as metaphors for human behaviors. The title of the collection also reflects irony, as the adjective animalades has a double meaning: references to both the animal world and to foolish and absurd human behavior. The main characters of the book are animals whose behaviors are far from social conventions, such as an arrogant cricket, a boastful dog, or a tadpole who tells fake stories as long as he is left alone. The book also features interesting linguistic games and a careful use of language, as can be seen in the synesthesia of the poem “Gri Grill.” [End Page 67] The other four titles in this group are considerably more recent and represent four seasons of the year. Poemes de fred i manta, which includes verses about winter, contains numerous melancholic compositions that invite us to meditation. Despite the poems being simple, Albertí uses natural and precise language in them. This work is followed by Poemes de flors i abelles, a collection colored by humor and the joy of living. The book narrates the burst of spring with all its seasonal colors. The poems paint the season with colors and metaphors full of iconographic qualities. Poemes de vent i fulles is dedicated to autumn, with chestnuts and the traditional panellet1 parade through short verses alluding to Catalan traditions. The last one, Poemes de sol i mosques, is an anthology of summer poems, as beaches, tellinas, and games play an important role in this work. The second group reflects a convergence of traditional and more contemporary elements. All three books here, Poemes i cançons de bressol (Poems and Nursery Songs; 2007), Roses i dracs (Roses and Dragons; 2009), and Pirates a la vista (Pirates in Sight; 2010), take traditional themes as their starting point, and through humor and irony, they are reversed and brought up to date by placing the characters in spatial and temporal coordinates known to young readers. Through the universal genre of lullaby, with references to children’s musical games, Albertí incorporates themes previously unused in Catalan children’s poetry into this motif, such as fear at night, dreams, and occasional suffering. In Pirates a la vista, Albertí recontextualizes common topics and themes of children’s poetry for current child readers. The poems within can be described as metatextual, with references to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, in which the pirate parrot is the one...