Vacation Notebook

"Vacation Notebook" o"Quadern de vacances" marks the first book-length appearance in English of one of the most honored and widely read poets in contemporary Catalan literature. First published in 1976, this book deals with the painful experience of coming to terms with multiple sclerosis, a disease he was first diagnosed with in 1970. The poems speak frankly about death, but they also exhibit a remarkable, subtle understanding of life that comes only from those who are threatened so tangibly with its loss. These words, carved out of silence, reveal a vital music that is uniquely his, instantly recognizable. -Everything is known, - Miquel Marti i Pol says, -but so deeply it always astounds.-"