This book, whose title could be translated from Catalan-Valencian into English as “Thinking in Verse: Improvised Sung Poetry in the Mediterranean Region,” was published in 2014 by Josep Vicent Frechina and has remained largely unknown outside of Catalan-speaking territories.
Frechina is one of the most notable experts on Catalan impromptu sung poetry (hereafter ISP) and is the founder and director of Revista Caramella, a volunteer-based magazine covering exclusively Catalan ISP and cultural heritage. This reviewer had the opportunity to meet him in the Europa bat-batean [1] one-week conference on improvised traditions organized by Donostia-San Sebastián, 2016 European Capital of Culture [2], and Mintzola Fundazioa [3], where this book was mentioned.
As observed in the title, this book aims to document the rich network of oral traditions in the Mediterranean region, but this is not the only topic covered. The book has two sections, Improvised Sung Poetry as a Cultural Phenomenon and Improvised Sung Poetry Genres in the Mediterranean Region, but it is the first section that will really enhance the reader’s appreciation of the tradition. The section describing ISP as a cultural phenomenon is longer than the section that provides the name to the book. In seven chapters, Frechina brilliantly describes what ISP is and what ISP means to this cultural community. He regards ISP as both a unique expression of folklore through a very tailored use of a particular language, and as a powerful tool or resource to shape a community and meet its needs and concerns. He also dedicates a chapter to the history of ISP, arguing that this art is older than stated by some scholars; and finally another chapter deals with the “unexpected revitalization of ISP.” This first section of the book is a brilliant lecture on ISP as a socio-cultural phenomenon, in my view a must-read for anyone who is interested in this topic.
The second section describes all of the ISP genres within the Mediterranean area, providing extensive data on their historical evolution, their contexts of creation, the main features of the genre, and the degree of acceptance in the communities where ISP is practiced. The scope of this section is indicated in the list of genres included:
Cant valencià (Valencia)
Glosa (Mallorca)
Glosa (Menorca)
Cançons de pandero (Catalonia)
Jota (Terres de l’Ebre, Catalonia/Valencia)
Corrandes de caramelles (Catalonia)
Nyacres i patacades (Empordà, Catalonia)
Garrotín (Lleida, Catalonia)
Trovo (Alpujarra – Andalucia)
Trovo (Murcia)
Ottava rima (Italy)
Gara poetica (Sardinia)
Chjiama è rispondi (Corsica)
Tsiattisma (Cyprus)
Spirtu Pront (Malta)
Zàjal (Lebanon)
Hida (Palestine)
To my knowledge, only the Croatian ISP genre known as Becarac is missing from this list. Ample recognition should be given to the author for including with this volume an outstanding CD featuring recordings of all the above-mentioned genres, offering readers this wide perspective and powerful sonorous data to enrich the book’s content.
As I see it, Pensar en vers is required reading for those of us interested in ISP and its interactions with folklore and oral tradition. It handles the details of ISP in the Mediterranean context with exceptional depth of knowledge. Remarkably, Frechina wrote this book over a two-year period, working mostly in his spare time to gather data for its two sections, attesting to the capability of this author and his passion for the topic. He tells us that he visited all but three of the regions covered in the book; thus, he is in a position to offer much relevant first-hand information to the reader. Furthermore, especially in the first section, he does not limit himself to the Mediterranean context but rather provides many quotes from well-know foreign scholars and many examples from other ISP genres, the Galician regueifas, the Cuban payadores and trobadores, and Basque bertsolaris being the most recurrent. The author also has a fluid and engaging writing style, which enhances the experience of reading the book.
If Pensar en vers were to be improved for future editions, I would suggest only two modifications. One, readers might benefit from having access to visual resources such as outlines, charts, and tables so they can better understand how the various genres work. In this way, the reader could observe at a glance, for example, how many syllables a garrotin has, where the rhyme should be placed, and so forth. Two, as Frechina is a speaker of a minoritized language, a discussion of the link between ISPs and the revitalization of minority languages would be of great interest.
To sum up, Josep Vicent Frechina’s Pensar en vers: La canço improvisada als països de la Mediterrània is an outstanding contribution that I recommend to folklorists and others interested in the topic of impromptu sung poetry. I would encourage further development of the theme addressed in this book through translations into other languages, through the treatment of ISP genres worldwide, and through a video documentary based on this outstanding study.
[1] http://www.mintzola.eus/en/europa-bat-batean/present/news/tag/europa%20bat-batean
[2] http://dss2016.eu/en/
[3] http://www.mintzola.eus/en?set_language=en
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[Review length: 814 words • Review posted on June 14, 2017]