When grief turns into poetry

«I have learned that I am no longer afraid of death. At 50 years old he did have it, he even avoided entering hospitals. If someone talked about it, it made me worried and nervous. And thanks to these people who have passed away and have been so important in my personal, family and intimate life, I think I have come to accept it. Kepa Murua (1962, Zarautz) has once again put words to mourning with ‘Orfandad’, a collection of poems dedicated to her mother who died almost three years ago. He previously dealt with the loss with ‘Where?’ (2023), which began with the farewell of Joaquín Mari Arzalluz, a lifelong friend. And another expiration, that of Pau Donés, led him to fill the pages of ‘Songs for Pau Donés’ (2022), in which he was inspired by the figure of the well-known Jarabe de Palo singer, especially for his optimism and that way to speak openly in his last days about the cancer he suffered.

Three books about loss in three years to put the sadness of absence in black and white, but they are also read as a thank you to those loved ones. In the last of them, ‘Orfandad’, recently published by the publishing house El Desvelo, the cover of the book itself has something of a tribute. In a photograph her mother is seen in a garden surrounded by roses. On the back cover it reads that it is a book with black covers – a symbol of mourning – and a “gift: poems from her son to her mother.” «When you remember and name something, ultimately something more than a vague image remains. Although it is a book of mourning, it is also a gift because it recognizes the people who have loved us and are no longer here and from whom we can learn many lessons.

Throughout the 140 pages of this publication the size of a palm’s breadth, the pain of the “emptiness that hurts” is evident, as he writes in ‘Kitchen’. There, in that piece, we also talk about the “last supper dish” in a review of the room so traditionally linked to mothers. It is not difficult to imagine the author of those verses returning to the settings that he shared with his loved ones. «Poetry has that symbolism. Resorting to the last supper, or how before there were two dishes in the kitchen and one left, is finally transmitted in a plastic way from art, painting or cinema. “When you achieve it through words, it is an achievement,” says this author, who has published thirty titles translated into different languages ​​and founded the renowned Bassarai publishing house (1996-2011) and Luke magazine (2000-2018).

fun memories

In another of the titles that are part of the new collection of poems, he opts for a much brighter look at the past. In the poem ‘Clothes’ he remembers when, as a young man, his mother cleaned and mended the clothes of some punk friends who were passing through Zarautz after a trip to Germany (‘I remember the return from Berlin / you invited my friends home (.. .) Before he left, his clothes / were clean: sewn, darned and washed’). «It is true and it is a real fact. “He couldn’t deceive,” says Murua, who remembers that he had many punk friends whose aesthetic with tattered clothing had little to do with how it looked when his mother made those repairs. “It was very fun, they didn’t understand absolutely anything, but they had a great time.”

It happens with Murua that sometimes it publishes a book about a topic that after a while becomes relevant with other products. His small novel ‘Elegancia’ – about the renowned couturier Balenciaga de Zarautz – is an example. In recent months, a biography and a series produced by Disney have been published. «I live it very calmly. Before I might have thought that there may even be plagiarism, but I feel that I am a person who greatly advances some themes that were already there,” he says about his work at the head of the Bassarai label and as an author.

Murua shows that it stands out from other firms. «There are writers who criticize the world of ‘bestsellers’, I am not one of those. “It seems very good to me that there are people who are very successful in the world of writing, who sell many books, who appear on TV and who are known, but my bet is on quality literature.”