Bernat Cifre Forteza (Pollença, 1935-2021) was a poet, prose writer, essayist, and secondary school Latin teacher.

After completing his primary and secondary schooling in Pollença, he spent some years at the Conciliar Seminary in Palma, after which he studied Arts at the University of Barcelona. He taught Latin in secondary schools in Manises, Granollers, and the Ramon Llull school in Palma where he was actively engaged in cultural life, as was subsequently the case in Pollença. 

In his mature years he wrote poetry that was clearly influenced by the poet Miquel Costa i Llobera and the Mallorca School in general, with traditional metrics and versification structuring a good part of his poems, which were collected in, among other works, Sistema decimal (1989), S’encalcen les verdors saltant per les marjades (1996), and La força del torrent: selecció de sonets (2017). Landscape is transformed into a symbol of human virtues as expressed in the poem “Lo pi de Formentor” for which he wrote an introductory study. His poetic prose, along similar lines, is collected in the two volumes of Geografia Lírica.

His most significant work as an essayist, Costa i Llobera i el món classic (1854-1922), which is based on his doctoral thesis, is a study of the work of this Mallorcan poet in which he formally analyses his poems, especially “Horacianes” and “La deixa del geni grec”.

He was an honorary member of the Associació d’Escriptors en Llengua Catalana (AELC – Association of Catalan Language).

Web page: Francesc Viñas per a l’AELC. 
Photographs: AELC (Lletres i Memòria).
Translation: Julie Wark.