Identifying with silkworms: Alterity, textiles, and labors of transformation in Maria-Mercè Marçal

• Autores: Núria Alishio-Caballero
• Localización: Catalan Review: international journal of Catalan culture, ISSN 0213-5949, Vol. 39, 2025, págs. 99-114
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Catalan poet Maria-Mercè Marçal (1952–1998) uses silkworms and technical textile language as a mirror for the experience of labors of transformation such as pregnancy and birth, illness and dying, and the creative poetic process. Although silkworms serve as a motif throughout her work, as do threads and fabric creation, little scholarly attention has been given to the function of these images. Making use of a framework based largely on the structures of empathy developed in Danielle Sands’ book Animal Writing and Sophie Lewis’ theorization of labors of transformation this study analyzes the role these images play in developing Marçal’s innovative poetic language. Focusing on two of Marçal’s poems, “Cosia, a punta d’alba” from the collection Sal oberta, originally published in 1982, and “Amb fils d’oblit” from the collection Raó del cos, published posthumously two years after the poet’s death, this reading illuminates how the silkworm demonstrates the contradictory and interwoven experiences of generative production and internalized alienation in Marçal’s work.