The turbulent and reflective poetry of Miriam Reyes, winner of the 2025 National Poetry Prize

The poetry of Miriam Reyes (Ourense, 1974) first appeared to a wide readership in a widely acclaimed and impactful anthology, Feroces (1998), published by Isla Correyero and by the now-defunct DVD Ediciones. Her writing then took on a distinct character, with a strange vibrancy, a dark and carnal edge, where love sometimes has a raw undertone and incubates a lofty protest. A new poetic movement was taking shape. Among it were/are Miriam Reyes, as are Julieta Valero, Ana Merino, Raquel Lanseros, Olga Novo, Yolanda Castaño, Elena Medel, Ariadna G. García , and so on. Three years later, in 2001, she published her first book, Espejo negro , and since then, she has been one of the most prominent poets on the horizon of 21st-century Spanish literature. The 2025 National Poetry Prize , awarded by the Ministry of Culture and endowed with 30,000 euros , underpins a well-defined path.

Over this time, from that first book to her latest, titled Con (With) and published a few months ago by La Bella Varsovia, Miriam Reyes's writing has refined her voice and her destiny , amplifying the ways in which she takes a stand within a feminism based on freedom and protest against any kind of domination. Reyes, the daughter of Galician parents who emigrated to Caracas, where she arrived at the age of 8 and left at 21 to settle again in Spain, has also developed a skill in translation and conceives of reading poetry from a performative to visual experimentation laden with suggestions. Her interest in exploring the margins is one of the core tenets of her project . And the body is an essential tool. The body as a space of love and desire. The body also as a territory of rebellion. The body as thought. And the body as action.

Poetry arrived as a balm and antidote to her parents' emigration. In reading and writing, she found shelter and answers, and a buffer against a certain adolescent hardship. Many poets shaped her work, but some more clearly: Chus Pato, Blanca Varela, García Lorca, Anne Carson, Paul Celan, Olvido García Valdés, Anne Carson... The jury chose Con for being " a collection of poems that participates in the public conversation regarding the possibilities of relationships ." The author's voice traces the territory of the mutual with force and originality, giving it an exceptional cosmic sense. The work's rhythm focuses on the dimensions of the relationship with the other. And she does so from a linguistic intelligence that thinks and moves, while writing, from the nakedness of consciousness and body."

And in the new poems, the relationship with the other is the axis, the place where Miriam Reyes investigates and delves. This is one of the poems in the book: " With or through your body/ I expand the limits of my consciousness/ my consciousness/ which is not sensitive matter/ but trembles ." And the jury insists: "An excellent collection of poems that, being conceptually acute, questions and lays bare each and every one of our emotions ." A poet who prefers the shadows to the spotlight, but enters with the poem into the light.