He has just presented his second book, Fireflies the words. It is made up of several parts, one of poetry in which a clear will to break with respect to his first work, Mar de la tranquilidad is perceived…

More than an evolution with respect to the first, I would say that it is a revolution. My first book was made with the guts and Fireflies the words are made with the head; the first is a compilation of what I have been writing for many years and the second is planned. It is a kind of literary artifact prepared to explode in different ways as it is played in different keys. And I want it to be like this: a kind of mechanism that can awaken different types of sensitivity. I am looking for readers, and I am convinced that Fireflies the words can have interesting readings for certain types of readers. Sea of ​​Tranquility was, above all, poetry of heartbreak, while Fireflies the Words touches on topics that may interest more people: from love to loneliness, the struggle for personal improvement, the passage of time, loneliness... It also includes certain hobbies of mine, like movies or one of my favorite topics, the conquest of space, which is the section with which the book opens.

Luciérnagas las palabras is written from a Sea of ​​tranquility that is reached from a previous tidal wave, marked, as he says, by heartbreak.

The title of that book is very ironic. Sea of ​​Tranquility is also a tribute to space, because it is where Apollo 11 landed. And I love that name…

However, in Sea of ​​Tranquility he makes no reference to space.

But I do refer to overcoming. The process that gives rise to Sea of ​​Tranquility is terrible: there are many currents that come together in this book, which was published in 2017. To get to it, I compiled many things from my life, from my past, and gave them meaning: it's a kind of catharsis in which I break with all my demons and try to reach a 'sea of ​​tranquility'. Writing a book was one of my greatest aspirations, just as reaching the moon was for man. I liked that symbology a lot. Then, when I finished the words Fireflies, I went back to Sea of ​​Tranquility to republish it, because it was out of print and, rereading it, there were things I didn't like. I needed to dress that feeling in new clothes. And it cost me a lot: revisiting what you were three years ago is very screwed up, especially when you have left it in writing.

But Sea of ​​Tranquility had been brewing a long time ago…

In 2017 all these currents were brought together in a book. And in 2020 or 2021 you go back to 2017 and you are not happy with what you have written. This edition is heavily retouched, until there comes a time when you decide not to retouch it anymore because otherwise it won't be the same book. But there are modifications, amputations, I remove this, I put this because it is how I feel now, although trying not to adulterate the origin.

In fact, it makes it clear on the cover that it's an expanded, revised, definitive edition.

I don't play it anymore (laughs). It still seems like an imperfect book to me, but now it's an imperfection that I feel comfortable with.

Are you sure you won't touch it again?

No, because it took me a long time to get to the imperfection that it is now. I think there are stages in your life that you have to close, and now I feel comfortable. It's like when you look at an old photo and notice those old-fashioned pants, but that was you then. And that's it. You plant yourself there, you modify it a bit, you get very deep with some poems and you leave others the same, and you already face a new stage, which is totally different.

With Fireflies the words, he has left behind the first literary reference of his first work, Garcilaso, to find us with all kinds of influences: from Bob Dylan to Vetusta Morla, Amy Winehouse, Quevedo, Boris Vian, Margot Robbie...

There is a lot of homage to my reading. I try to play with quotes. The allusion to Vetusta Morla is a quote from the song 'Valiente'. That poem is an Our Father to Sheldon Cooper, and I precede it with 'Excuse my audacity' in case any Catholic feels offended. I appeal to some people who may not understand the irony and think that I am attacking religion, because I am not attacking anyone. But I always play a lot with the quote preceding the poem and people thinking about it, because nothing is written by chance. There is not a single letter or a single comma that does not have its reason for being.

There is also a tribute to Rudyard Kipling's 'If'...

I don't like Kipling very much as a poet, but that poem is very beautiful and I wanted to pay homage to it. As for The Foam of the Days, it is a masterpiece that you can read as many times as you want; it is a stunning book. When I studied Hispanic Philology, we did a play about him and it dazzled me. It is a super poetic book, super chaotic too, terrible. And another novel by Boris Vian that has influenced me a lot is Spit on Your Grave, a brutal, stark, terrible crime novel. Only with these two works, Vian has become one of the great prose writers of the 20th century, although he has not yet been sufficiently recognized. And it's not easy to read.

No, it's not.

Do you know which book that happens to me, I have a hard time reading it, and it's a masterpiece and one of the most brilliant writers? With The Metamorphosis. It is a terrible book. Kafka has a sensitivity that is even sick, and what he writes is so simple, but what lies behind it is so terrible that it passes me by. You have to be very strong mentally to read The Metamorphosis.

Reading his works, he seems more comfortable expressing heartbreak than existential themes…

Yes?

Lost love is a theme present in all his work. There is an evolution, yes, from that unattainable woman of Sea of ​​Tranquility to the nuances of Luciérnagas las palabras…

When a poet is happy, he doesn't write. When I am most inspired is when I am not happy; when I am absolutely happy, I don't write, words don't come out. When things worry me, or I have a personal problem, a soul problem, a human problem, that's when they come out. In soccer, for example, the most terrible images are those of the losing team: people crying, on the ground... Losers move me more; the tacky joy of the winner doesn't move me at all. Anna Karenina, which is one of the best novels of all time, begins like this: "All happy families are similar to each other, but each unhappy family is in its own way." And it is so. The manifestation of sadness is different in each one. When I am in a state of emotional exaltation and I am happy, I feel a kind of dopamine that makes me focus on enjoying myself. However, when you suffer from a personal problem or a sensation that passes through you humanly, that is when it flows and you refocus on that situation. It is in those moments when I fight with words. I like the idea of ​​the ineffable, what cannot be expressed, and many times words fight to express the ineffable: you have to put them together so that, giving them a certain shape, they click and you manage to convey to the reader what you you feel. For example, the death of my father, in 2010, blocked me a lot, but the poem I dedicated to him came out on its own. My father was not a believer and we threw the ashes to the wind in his town. And the final sentence of that poem has a lot to do with how I felt about my father: it's that I can't or don't want to cry for him because he has a cemetery, but he doesn't have a grave: I play a lot with that idea of ​​a father who is no longer here and There is a place to cry for him, I don't even want it. Cemeteries seem terrible places to me; I think they shouldn't exist.

And have you managed to click many times with the words to express the ineffable?

That's for readers to say.

But the same poem can have a different meaning for each reader.

It's what I want. You can read a poem, open the book, immerse yourself in it and it doesn't come to you in a certain sentence, but it comes to you in another. That's why I try to give my verses several 'coats of paint'. In fact, the great works of literature have to do with the variety of registers and interpretations that they admit. Don Quixote, for example, can be read in many ways: it can be the most profound work in the world or a simple humor book. It has many layers, and in poetry, more in Luciérnagas the words than in the previous work, I try to print many layers. I even try to give the loving part a veneer of irony. People don't realize it, but there's a lot of religious symbology in everything I write. The whole subject of the Christian religion fascinates me in what has to do with the ceremony. One of the most fascinating rites seems to me to be the election of the Pope: they enter the conclave, close the door, 'extra omnes', everyone out; the holy spirit has to come, it is supposed; The votes are made, white smoke, black smoke, then the Pope comes out... I think all this event is fantastic at a ceremonial level. The mass seems very fascinating to me, because that ornament, that symbology (the body of Christ in communion), other religions do not use. The Catholic religion is enormously sensory: you eat the body of Christ, while the Muslim religion prohibits images. And the Christian religion recreates itself in death, in the footsteps, the holy sheet, the bleeding corpse of Christ, of God who dies for you... It is very carnal, and that carnality attracts my attention, regardless of other types of interpretations.

There are references to many cultural manifestations, also contemporary. The space, Amy Winehouse, Sheldon Cooper... are links that the reader tends at each step to connect with him.

I am looking for like-minded readers, and I know that what I write is not easy. They have to have a certain cultural level. I know what kind of reader I'm looking for. There is some concession, as in Arganda's poem, but in general I am looking for a type of educated reader, because that is how I feel comfortable. I want to establish complicity, that mine is a type of modern poetry related to the things that interest me; It is not a commercial poetry, of those that are recited in the towns. I know what I want, and I wanted to write a book I'd be proud of ten years from now, without tinkering with it.

And how does that fit with the consumer society?

Very 'badly'. I know that my poetry book is not easy: there are people who like it a lot and others who tell me 'I don't understand you when you write'. In fact, "it is that you write a poem called 'quevediano' and then another called 'antiquevediano'". Sure, it's on purpose. They are connected, and even the end of Fireflies the words is a poem, a mini-play called 'Margot Robbie', who is an actress that I love, and symbolizes the death that comes looking for the poet and disguises himself as her. , and the ending is that it takes you to the Sea of ​​Tranquility, linking directly to the previous book. They are reading keys. In fact, the poem with which the crime novel begins, which appears stuck in the eye of the protagonist, is one of the words of Fireflies, with some changes to create game in the plot. Even the final part, the short stories, are another game with the reader. The most famous short story in history, by Augusto Monterroso: “When he woke up, the dinosaur was still there”, is very evocative. There is a story called Misspellings that ends with a misspelling. I like those kinds of winks. The Electra 10 story is a nod to Blade Runner and the replicants; she is a replicant who doesn't know she is. I do all those winks to stay comfortable, but not everyone is going to capture them.

For that you have to have read a lot and seen a lot of movies…

There are many influences. The poem that is headed by Bob Dylan is a tribute to the movie 'Hurricane Carter' and the Bob Dylan song 'Hurricane', and it has a lot to do with personal overcoming power with your enemies. The 'Song of exile' is a tribute to the Poema del Mio Cid, where I give an ironic twist to the first verses of Spanish literature: it is the person who loves who looks at the person who rejects him and leaves, that is, who banishes him Those types of games always have a hidden key that not everyone can get; if you scratch, you always find a layer, and another, and another... Because writing a poem of fifteen or twenty verses is not easy. It's hard for me and everything is very polished. In fact, when I finished the words Fireflies, I thought that I didn't want it to happen to me as with Sea of ​​Tranquility, that in four years I would read it and not be comfortable.

At the moment, he has embarked on a serial crime novel, The Poet...

Yes, and it's giving me a lot of headaches.

Even though you haven't finished publishing it yet, have you finished it yet?

I still need to polish a few things, but I'm really regretting publishing it in chapters. I think it would work better as a complete book.

But it will become one…

Yeah, but maybe it wasn't the best idea to upload it by chapters, because people can get disengaged. The truth is that at first the idea of ​​a serialized novel seemed nice to me, as it was done in the old days, but sometimes people do not trust downloads, even if it is totally safe. My page is completely secure and I already have enough chapter downloads, but I see that people find it difficult. And he asks when I'm going to upload the next one, and sometimes they say that between one chapter and another they forget... But hey, what's done, chest.

And why is it taking so long to write it?

A poem is a sprint, while a novel is a marathon, a long-distance race. And it's costing me a lot because the characters are very outlined; They have great wealth and they are developing, and they have a long way to go, and then there are others that are going to appear. But it costs a lot to maintain the tension, because I don't want to base the novel only on a plot line, but rather the characters have a lot of weight. That worries me a lot. I don't know if I will succeed, but I want each character to be very polished, stand out and have their own entity. Above all because, if I finally get where I want to go, which I don't know if I'll be able to, there will be a second part of the book. At least I would like to.

By uploading it online, you are receiving feedback from readers at the same time that you are continuing to write it. Does that help the creative process?

I try not to ask. In fact, I would like to ask him what he thinks, but I don't want to because it might influence me [laughs]. Some people tell you. For example, there are those who tell me that I started very strong, but I wanted to make an impact. It is also an experiment. The leap into prose is another twist.

In his work he makes several nods to Arganda del Rey, his city. In fact, one of the sonnets won the poetry contest 'Ciudad de Arganda del Rey'. Has it been introduced before?

No. In fact, I didn't anticipate it. But I applied and I won it. In fact, I introduced myself to poetry and prose, in the latter case with the story of misspellings. And I won the first one, with the sonnet. I had illusions of winning with prose...

Why?

Because I think that, on an artistic level, the story of the Misspellings has more value than the poem. Quevediano, the sonnet, is a tribute to the 17th century, to the symbolism of the beloved, of courtly love, of the poet devoted to the beloved... But I think it is not my best sonnet at all. I like sonnets, but writing them is torture, if you want me to be right. And it's a sonnet that was looking for public recognition: I wanted people to like it.

But if you weren't convinced, why didn't you submit another one?

Because it was a sonnet for Cervantes Week and a tribute to the 17th century, and I had in mind to do something related to the voseo… And I said to myself: 'I'm going to give it shape'. Before knowing that the contest existed, he had planned to write something related to Cervantes, but Cervantes is a terrible poet: the best poet in Spanish literature is, by far, Quevedo, but he is a very difficult poet.

His first work begins with allusions to Garcilaso…

Garcilaso is a poet who has more popular verses, and there was a time in my life when I really liked them. But, as you get older, Quevedo impacts you more.

Another evolution.

Well, my favorite poet, when I was 17, was Bécquer. But in the end, when you grow up, Bécquer falls short and you look for something more transcendent. And you have that significance in Quevedo, who is a very powerful poet, especially when he talks about death, the passage of time... but also when he is atrociously and fiercely critical, often misogynistic. But he is a very powerful poet, who goes beyond.

Have you stopped writing poetry while working on your novel?

No. In fact, on Instagram I am trying to promote the page, and I realize that poetry works a lot on this social network. And there are two new poems that are not in the books: one is called 'Al olmo de Machado' and another, a poem related to a degenerative disease that my mother had. And recently, we did a photo session in the Retiro Park, which I love, and I'm writing something about this place. But it is very difficult for me to change the 'chip' from poetry to prose and vice versa.

Why Amadeus Raven?

Actually, it's not a pseudonym I'm very proud of. It is a tribute to Mozart and Poe. Edgar Allan Poe had a very famous gothic poem, which I liked. And my pseudonym sounds like this, a bit gothic, like from a comic, Amadeus Raven… Putting these words together sounds good, it sounds euphonious. But we are talking about a pseudonym that I searched for in 2017 so as not to expose myself. I don't like presenting myself as Miguel Ángel López. Fernando Pessoa had heteronyms, he wrote with various voices, depending on what he wrote. A pseudonym helps protect you: there are things that Amadeus Raven says, not me. And it also has a phrase that struck me a lot, by Fernando Pessoa: the poet is a pretender. And in a way yes: it is in many ways. It is not that it fixes, but that it is hidden. You have a feeling and you can mold it, hide it or cover it with many layers so that it does not affect you. I protect myself a lot with those layers.

What is believed is that poets transmit what they feel…

Some do, but others, like Rubén Darío, try to impress you.

There are very intimate poems in Amadeus Raven's work…

Yes, sometimes they are, but other times they are just rocket-popping poems, like the 'prayer' to Sheldon Cooper. Human feelings are very basic: love, hate, sadness, I love you, I hate you, I'm afraid... Those are the primary feelings. But you can't start a poem by saying, "I love this girl and she doesn't love me." You have to wear that will of the author's style. In the end you end up having a pure feeling, which is what you are talking about, but you have to dress it in clothes that surprise people, and that seduce. Poetry is form, just as in the novel the content is very important, poetry is a flash whose form has to impress you. You have to seek the admiration of who reads you. We are all worried about death, but if you talk about it personified, like an actress, Margot Robbie, it awakens a different way of seeing something that is terrible, just as profound. What I try is to impress the reader, and I think that is what every author wants.

Author's website: Amadeus Raven