Días y trabajos

The fifth installment of the poetic work of Jacobo Cortines was partly advanced in the compilation "Pasión y paisaje (1974-2016)", but since then the book has grown to take on the dimensions of this definitive edition. To the then-known poems, such as the impressive "Europa", new prints are now added from the "De vita beata" section, it was chosen by the master Alberto Zedda -who finds his place in "Afinidades", together with the tributes to Manuel Castillo and Carmen Laffón-, the moving triptych "Pasos de amor" -dedicated to the poet's wife, Cecilia Romero de Solís-, the long poem "Strange return" -written during confinement last spring, in which Cortines it continues the line of other major compositions such as "Letter of June" and "Name between names"- or the "Coda" that closes the volume, where poems are brought together marked by a melancholy that results from age and the sum of absences. A book of absolute maturity, "Days and Works" is the work of an essential poet who handles the brief lyrical annotation and the long poem with equal mastery. A poet with a humanistic background and moral intention whose voice, perfectly modulated, is characterized by a meditative tone, elegant diction and classical resonances, which start from the resources of tradition to confront personal truth and the chiaroscuro of the contemporary age.