La cremallera is a staged poem that sings of the city and its explorers, of love that can do anything, and of the adventure of losing oneself. It’s a glittering journey to the marrow of Barcelona’s other side and a spell shouted out from the very top of Bald Mountain. It’s an interdimensional portal and open-heart surgery. It’s a call to revolution and the abbreviated history of textiles. It’s a pair of lovers frolicking in the rivers of hell. It’s the local chronicle of the universal deluge and a walkabout through the artificial night: a psychedelic elegy in eight syllables.
Born in 1979 in Barcelona, Martí Sales has done a bit of everything: he’s played in bands (Els Surfing Sirles, Convergència i Unió), he’s studied Theoretical and Comparative Literature, he’s written (Huckleberry Finn, Moll 2005; Dies feliços a la presó, Empúries 2007; Ara és el moment, Amsterdam 2011; Principi d’incertesa, Males Herbes 2015 and La Cremallera, Males Herbes 2016); he’s contributed to Time Out Barcelona; he’s translated (John Fante, Kurt Vonnegut, Jim Dodge); acted (with Amaranto theatre company and in a thousand other recitals and events); he’s created objectual art magazines (Al Buit 2001-2003), and directed the Barcelona International Poetry Festival (with Eduard Escoffet, 2010-2012) and Fundación Palau y Fabre’s Poesía y + festival.
