El Compromís polític en els poemes de la primera època de Maria-Mercè Marçal

The poet Maria-Mercè Marçal’s work underwent a significant process of evolution, moving from a series of early collections that were centered on the reality of a country in the midst of radical transformation to later work that focused on more intimate, and especially feminine, experiences, such as motherhood, lesbian love and breast cancer. While early collections featured references to some of the political events of the time and expressions of her commitment to the Catalan language and culture and evidence of her feminist activism, her poetry would gradually take on an ever more introspective and less explicitly activist character. This article is an analysis of the aspects of her work showing the poet’s political commitment that appeared in her first poetry collection, Cau de llunes (1973–1976), which was written in Catalan during the final years of the Franco dictatorship. In it she alludes to Francesc Layret, a politician and defender of the working class and the anarcho-syndicalist Salvador Seguí, as well as to the dictators Augusto Pinochet and Francisco Franco.