Time cycles anchor a particular observation about Camp de Mar, the debut poetry collection from Andreu Jaume that critics first noted years ago. The work stands as a multidimensional figure in Jaume’s career: primarily an editor in the Anglo-Saxon sense, shaping selections and guiding a vision that loops back to a broad literary world each year. When reading Camp de Mar, the initial impulse is not simply to dwell on the title, the Majorcan setting, or Jaume’s sentimental attachments. The suggestion is metaphysical: a reflection on how a place and its lineage translate into poetry, and how tradition can shelter a poet within new configurations. In the book there are nods to Ferrater and to the Ferraterian method, a wink toward Auden, and a cadence that helps measure the length of the poem. The moment invites a meditation on the word metaphysics rather than on mere connotation, as if the poet found refuge in the leafy tree of tradition. The book invites a careful discernment of lineage, avoiding easy branches and instead tracing a nuanced dialogue among poets and influences. References to the Costa i Llobera, Gil de Biedma, Valente, and other currents become a map of echoes rather than a simple list of names, with attention paid to how each writer leaves a trace in Camp de Mar and in the companion volume Tormenta. The overarching sense is one of a Ferraterian glance and an Audenian sensibility, shaping the work through the length and texture of its poems. The critic’s mind moves toward memoriam and unfinished poetry, a dynamic that resonates with the book’s very rhythm and cadence. This is the way the text opens a window into what came before and what might come after, not as nostalgia but as a steady, living dialogue with tradition.
Tormenta, a companion piece in Jaume’s oeuvre, is read with the same reverence for the enduring influences that define modern poetics in English and Spanish. The discussion honors Eliot and Pound while acknowledging the English bard’s development across different eras. The critic highlights Leaves of the Tree as a recurring symbol—an emblem of growth, fragmentation, and resilience—emphasizing the oscillation between two paths within Anglo-Saxon modernity. The nineteenth-century metaphysical poets lay groundwork that extends through Romanticism, with Thomas Hardy occupying a central position among its heirs. Figures such as Robert Graves, Edward Thomas, Wilfred Owen, and Philip Larkin appear as branches that contribute to a broader tradition, continuing to shape the present moment. Pound remains a pivotal influence, with Eliot’s European influence paired with the American avant-garde, where Wallace Stevens and WH Auden are especially relevant to Jaume’s own poetics. The dialogue across these lines demonstrates how Jaume positions his work at the crossroads of reverence and experimentation. The critic stresses that these currents—both classic and avant-garde—coexist within a single literary tradition, a harmony that Jaume navigates through his editing and writing. The sense of humanty that Pound treasured, amplified through the lens of Jaume’s poetry, is a recurring theme, a reminder of how poetry can articulate the shared human condition. The critical note recognizes the variety of voices present, yet also notes a fundamental cohesion that arises from the poet’s method and sensibility. Jaume’s voice engages with a lineage that includes Basil Bunting, keeping a persistent thread that honors the art while inviting fresh readings. The text hints at other currents and places a spotlight on the German influence characteristic of a Jordi Llovet disciple, with a Rilkean undertone that suggests a deeper, more private channel within the work’s architecture. The conversation remains open to further exploration, leaving space for additional connections if needed.
Together, Camp de Mar and Tormenta contribute to a broader family of Majorcan poets who write in Spanish. These writers do not chase a fixed, leafy tree of tradition; instead, they invite an open flow toward the wider European and American poetic landscape of the twentieth century. The influence ranges from Jacobo Sureda’s Sorcerer of the Five Senses to Tormenta’s prose, which is richly poetic and names luminous figures such as Cristóbal Serra, Eduardo Jordá, Enrique Juncosa, Juan Planas Bennásar, Antonio Rigo, and Vidal Valicourt. The points of contact extend from Eliot’s distant reach to Graves’s immediacy, passing through avant-garde impulses and enduring formal traditions. The result is a poetry that, while rooted in Majorcan soil, remains free to explore and enrich itself, resisting formality or militancy. It is a body of work that speaks to a universal readership while preserving a distinctly local voice. Jaume’s place remains anchored at Camp de Mar and continues to echo in Tormenta, underscoring a consistent creative center. The landscapes—both physical and mental—are inseparably linked, and the poet’s sense of place remains a core component of the writing’s depth. Eivissa, Vicente Valero, and Ben Clark appear as other touchpoints, yet the emphasis stays on how the landscape becomes part of the inner life of the poetry.
In the view of the critic, a poetry collection should resist being separated from any single reader’s experience; it should endure and invite ongoing engagement. Tormenta moves most readily on the narrative plane, balancing emotion with a keen critical distance. Different readers will be drawn to different paths, but the core arc tells a story of love and misunderstanding, of Florence and abandonment, of loneliness and the crossing of seas—from Majorca to an Italian city. The rhythm of the lines aligns with the vitality that animates the verses, guiding the reader toward a sense of spirit that animates the entire book. The critic sees a spirit living in the leafy tree as an invitation rather than a mere metaphor. A brief aside recalls Gil de Biedma’s decision to let go of a public persona and biographical details, suggesting that his best final poems emerged when he freed himself from self-awareness. In Tormenta, poetry remains a living being that understands its own vulnerability and continues its inward advance.