In literature, poetry often threads retrospection through its lines. This revisit isn’t only about choosing a subject or refine a method; it’s about tracing back to the moment that sparked creation. Writers frequently journey into the past to reinvent themselves. Time travel may be a fantasy for some, yet this return to origins is a practical way to rekindle artistic fire. The flame of creativity can burn fiercely at the core, even as it dims to embers with the passage of years. A poet’s task remains: tend that flame, keep it alive, and let the spark illuminate new work.
Time and seed. The Poetry Anthology 2013-1975 by Juan Ramón Torregrosa, with an introduction by Ángel Luis Prieto de Paula and published by a noted publishing house, invites readers into the life and craft of the Guardamar del Segura poet. The collection is arranged in a countdown-like reverse sequence, guiding readers from past to present. The opening piece, Truth and Memory, frames the entire volume: truths clash, self-doubt surfaces, and memory offers the sole honesty the poems can extend to readers, aiming to resist oblivion.
Like many poets, Torregrosa began with lived experience. Youth did not produce mere rituals or dhikr; rather, his work grounds itself in the physical world. Some writers manufacture false memories to evoke unexperienced feelings, but Torregrosa remains tethered to concrete experience. While dreamlike, his verses touch earth and skin with immediacy. The poem As the Pain Continues exemplifies this sensibility: it traces how bodies seek connection in crowded spaces, across cinemas, subways, classrooms, and streets, echoing a human longing that travels through time. Memory threads strongly through Torregrosa’s poetry, revealing a poet who embodies life’s brightness and shadows. If one were to describe his voice, it would be a walker who buries himself in the earth because he does not merely think—he lives, and that lived truth matters most.
What stands out is a body of work deemed essential. Time and seed capture a writer deeply rooted in life, who uses experience to craft lucid visions of the world and a palpable love of living. This vitality glimmers in the poem Moans, with lines that evoke the world’s oldest sounds and the way language can fall short of form, leaving echoes to fill valleys as oceans hold their patient watch. Yet the collection also acknowledges what could have been. Torregrosa is portrayed as a poet who contemplates unrealized possibilities and the silence of what was left unsaid. The book opens its mirror on the poet’s life, with a dedication to leaving a true record of who he was, what he could not become, and what he hopes for, even as time closes in on every arm that holds a memory.