Between the Sheets

Europe's first “poetry brothel” has been stirring passions in Barcelona. Duncan Rhodes hands over his money and gets a good talking to. Photography by Mark Gregory Peters

Abrothel will scratch your surface, unzip your purse, collect years in the folds of thick pink curtains,” recites Lola Page, staring provocatively into my eyes from behind her leather-bound scrapbook. Her posh English accent is quite at odds with her dirty words, and I listen closely to her softly lisped verses as they climb to a crescendo. “And the sweetness that came between my legs filled me up, when the bitterness was too much to stomach…”

As I kiss Lola goodnight, with the confidence of a regular customer, it seems hard to believe that only a few hours ago I was a textually frustrated young man who’d never experienced a private reading before – let alone visited a “poetry brothel”. Such is the seductive power of the Prostíbulo Poético, a regular event organised by the enigmatic Madame Eva Leon especially for Barcelona’s students of stanzas.

It was Eva who had greeted me at the door and let a nervous neophyte know what to expect from the evening. “Around me are all my ‘putas’ (‘prostitutes’), each one with their own unique character and history,” she says. “You can meet the Mexican food writer who is celebrating the Day of the Dead, a Catalan count with a tragic tale, or our lost soul from Argentina – we have a puta for every person. Just take a drink, pick a seat and if you feel like a reading just let me know and either myself or my assistant will help you select somebody who is appropriate for you.”

In fact there’s barely a seat left in the house, as the entire basement of the aptly named Seven Sins restaurant is bustling with louche characters, talking, mingling and eagerly queuing up for a private recital. In one candlelit corner a voluptuous woman in black is purring out her poems to an enraptured client. In another, a feisty looking strumpet in a pink wig (think Natalie Portman in Closer) is rendering rhyme to a bespectacled admirer. Huddled close to me on a couch, two women are lapping up every last iambic pentameter recited by a wreathed Greek poetess, fresh off the boat from Lesbos.

Madame Eva comes over and is about to put a big red book in my hands – a menu of all the poetry putas on offer – when her amnesia-suffering assistant Harvey Ninguna (Harvey “no one”) informs me that a slot has opened up for a reading. It’s with none other than the renowned Señorita de la Rosa, or Isolda as I am instructed to call her.

“I’ve never been with a poet before,” I confess to the pretty Latina puta, hoping she will go easy on me. Luckily, Isolda is the sympathetic type, perhaps because of her troubled history, which she divulges after a little prompting. It transpires that her privileged upbringing in Central America was shattered one day by the revelation that her father was a major drugs baron.

“I wondered how we had so much money when my father didn’t wake up until midday,” she tells me. Unable to cope with this tainted reality, Isolda decided to flee her luxurious lifestyle, ending up on the streets of Mexico, before finally arriving penniless in Spain. It wasn’t long before she was forced to start selling her poems for money.

“I had just lost my job in a tobacco shop when Madame Eva asked me if I wanted to join her brothel. At first I was nervous, because I am shy and I don’t like to share my poetry with strangers. But I really liked the other putas, they were fun and we connected with each other really well. There is a lot of solidarity – we are all human beings after all.”

After this comforting preamble, I tell Isolda I am finally ready for some poetry, and without further ado she dutifully bears her soul. “This one is called The Return of Colour,” she says.

“Purple explodes within, wild orange and melancholy grey whisper to each other and conspire to bring laughter to my face. I feel the blue in my tongue, my breath is yellow – words shaped as leaves come out of my mouth. I no longer taste nothingness because even my voice has turned silver. I am a fish and a bird.”

At the end of this impassioned reading I feel moved and even privileged to have shared this beautiful act of poetry with Isolda. But instead of an emotional farewell, I find myself dismissed with a curt goodbye and I am left to watch forlornly as the next customer takes their place in my still warm seat. I wonder if I’m a little too sensitive for this den of verse.

The brothel is now in full swing and a couple of beers have done wonders for my attachment issues. I catch hold of one of the brothel’s more experienced scribes, Ramón – I want to know how a respectable gentleman like himself came to prostitute his poetry to any Tom, Dick or Jaime. “I got involved in the brothel through a friend, but I’ve been writing poetry for a long time,” he admits, brazenly. “Tonight my name is Ramón, but I’m a different poet the rest of the time. All of us here have two identities.”

He remains tight-lipped on the subject of his relationship with Madame Eva, so I ask him instead whether, given the nature of his job, he can still enjoy poetry in his personal life. “Of course, you can still enjoy poetry when you make a living out of it,” he says. “You read poetry for money, you read poetry for pleasure, and you write poetry for money, you write poetry for pleasure. There is a boundary, but it’s a blurred boundary.”

Maybe the white wine’s to blame, or maybe it’s the general atmosphere of experimentation, but seconds later I find myself accepting Ramón’s indecent proposal for what the Spanish call a “trio”! He leads me into a dark corner, where I’m delighted to discover the third party in this orgy of odes is none other than the pink-haired beauty I’d spied earlier. She introduces herself as Miss Quote. I ask her if a three-way isn’t pushing her poetical boundaries. “Not at all,” she replies coolly. “We wrote this one together.” The two putas promptly take turns in stroking the stanzas, and I find it hard to credit Miss Quote’s complaint that it’s been a while since any ink marked her page. An unlikely story! When it’s all over I ask how I should part company with a lady of quill repute. She simply points to her upturned hat. “With a tip, of course.”

I’ve nearly had my fill of poetry for the night when I bump into Madame Eva on one of her numerous social rounds. After singing the praises of her harem of hymnists, I ask her to put into words the idea behind this intoxicating bordello.

“I want to expose people to poetry, and for them to discover it doesn’t have to mean Shakespeare,” she says. “The brothel makes people a lot more comfortable. Here you get to talk to the poet, you’re more intimate, and you can actually see the poem while it’s being read to you. There’s another direction where poetry is going, where people can actually touch it – and that’s our inspiration.”

No sooner has Madame Eva finished speaking than her sharp blue eyes start scanning the room. She signals towards a mischievous-looking girl in a plum-coloured Trilby hat. “By the way, have I introduced you to the lovely Lola? I believe she’s free for a private reading.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON BARCELONA’S POETRY BROTHEL NIGHTS, INCLUDING DATES AND VENUES, VISIT HTTP://POETRYBROTHELBARCELONA.BLOGSPOT.COM AND WWW.7SINSBAR.COM