In a farmhouse in Cordoba between brambles and oleanders lived a saddler-man with a saddler-woman ...
Federico García Lorca in New York and the Other Spaniards
On García Lorca's Poet in New York
García Lorca in New York
Garcia Lorca's passport.
A picture relevant to García Lorca's works
The cancelled presentation
An acquaintance visits the García Lorca's exhibit at the NYPL on 42nd St at Fifth Avenue.
The recounting of the Missing Poet.
García Lorca at Columbia University.
A display of documents at the New York Public Library
La guitarra de la que el poeta habla en sus poemas
La Argentina
García Lorca's business correspondence.
Other Documents Originales y Correspondencia.
The Poet who would not return.
A Poet in New York
During my junior year in high-school, I got the chance to
interpret the character of shoemaker in the La Zapatera Prodigiosa (The
Shoemaker's Prodigious Wife) play by Federico García Lorca. It was a fun experience which I shared with
beautiful red-headed Rosalía Donofrio, who played the female saddler After the high-school experience at Humboldt in
the Normal School Theater, I eventually saw her as a psychology student at
Universidad del Norte for a few years, and it is possible that we might have
graduated on the same ceremony a few years later. However, this was my only
major dramatic experience, as an actor with deep penetration in the psychological
understanding of the character, and the social and personal content of the
drama.
Just a few weeks ago, I walked into the lower level room at the
New York Public Library on 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue with an
acquaintance to see the exhibit on Back Tomorrow, displaying a few important
documents and late writings by Garcia Lorca, who happen to become my favorite
Spaniard poet after my unique dramatic experience. The New York exhibit
presented the scenario and documents prior to his death, and a collection of his literary works. García Lorca never return after his famous “back tomorrow”, as
he was killed in Spain during the civil war. And his book Poet in New York was published
During my school and college years, there were several attempts
for an insight in the Spanish literature and my only major interaction came
along when I got a copy of La Vida es Sueño by [Don] Pedro Calderón de la
Barca, which came to me accidentally, as it had been given as a reading
assignment to my brother César at Colegio de San Francisco de Asís, and I
stumbled onto the book and carefully read it.
As if dreams freed the soul, the topic of dreaming to live, or living
the dream or trying to dream to attain what we might have physically or materially in the immediate future, became an important leit motif in
some of my short stories, and has significantly influence the creative nature
of my poetry from the hispanic perspective, beyond the most significant
admiration and drills on Musset, Victor Hugo, Baudelaire, and some other of my
favorite French poets.
However, the greatest and best known Spanish poet is probably
Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer. He was indeed the most studied and analyzed through my
formal school coursework. In particular, Rimas y Leyendas (Rhymes and Legends),
represented the most significant work by a Spanish poet of his time.
Bécquer’s rhyme LIII
(Rima LIII)
Volverán las oscuras
golondrinas
En tu balcón sus nidos a
colgar
Y otra vez con el ala a sus
cristales,
Jugando llamarán.
Pero aquellas que el vuelo
refrenaban
Tu hermosura y mi dicha a
contemplar,
Aquellas que aprendieron
nuestros nombres,
¡Esas... no volverán!
In English:
The dark swallows will
return
their nests upon your
balcony, to hang.
And again with their wings
upon its windows,
Playing, they will call.
But those who used to slow
their flight
your beauty and my
happiness to watch,
Those, that learned our
names,
Those... will not come
back!
Rhyme XXI (Rima XXI)
¿Qué es poesía?, dices
mientras clavas
en mi pupila tu pupila
azul.
¡Qué es poesía! ¿Y tú me lo
preguntas?
Poesía... eres tú.
A harsh translation into English reads:
What is poetry? you ask,
while fixing
your blue pupil onto mine.
What is poetry! And you are
asking me?
Poetry... is yourself.
And through my life, I have indeed read many antologies on the
Spanish literature. Beyond my admiration
of Don Quijote and my studies both in Spanish Literature and through French
Literature studies on Le Quixote in comparison to La Chanson de Rolland and
other Gallic and French Troubadour writings, and further beyond my literary
analysis of the Spanish historic and Spanish historic-religious genres in the
novel category, there have been many poets that have certainly impressed me.
The list is simply too long, but I could highlight some such as:
Rafael Alberti (1902–1999), Vicente Aleixandre (1898–1984) -
Nobel Laureate 1977, Dámaso Alonso (1898–1990),
Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836–1870), Baltasar del Alcázar (1530–1606),
Jorge Guillén (1893–1984), Juan Ramón Jiménez (1881–1958) - Nobel Laureate
1956, Antonio Machado (1875–1936), Pedro Salinas (1892–1951),Garcilaso de la
Vega (1503–1536),José de Espronceda (1808–1842). They have mostly influenced South American poets, such as Jorge Luis Borges, César Vallejo, and Guillermo Valencia, among others.
But finally retaking García Lorca, it was an exciting experience to visit his exhibit an enjoy with friends and acquaintances of various nationalities a celebration of our Hispanic culture.
But finally retaking García Lorca, it was an exciting experience to visit his exhibit an enjoy with friends and acquaintances of various nationalities a celebration of our Hispanic culture.
Poems by García Lorca
A tree of blood soaks the morning
where the newborn woman groans.
Her voice leaves glass in the wound
and on the panes, a diagram of bone.
The coming light establishes and wins
white limits of a fable that forgets
the tumult of veins in flight
toward the dim cool of the apple.
Adam dreams in the fever of the clay
of a child who comes galloping
through the double pulse of his cheek.
But a dark other Adam is dreaming
a neuter moon of seedless stone
where the child of light will burn.
Adivinanza De La Guitarra
En la redonda
encrucijada,
seis doncellas
bailan.
Tres de carne
y tres de plata.
Los sueños de ayer las buscan
pero las tiene abrazadas
un Polifemo de oro.
¡La guitarra!
Cantos Nuevos
Dice la tarde: '¡Tengo sed de sombra!'
Dice la luna: '¡Yo, sed de luceros!'
La fuente cristalina pide labios
y suspira el viento.
Yo tengo sed de aromas y de risas,
sed de cantares nuevos
sin lunas y sin lirios,
y sin amores muertos.
Un cantar de mañana que estremezca
a los remansos quietos
del porvenir. Y llene de esperanza
sus ondas y sus cienos.
Un cantar luminoso y reposado
pleno de pensamiento,
virginal de tristeza y de angustias
y virginal de ensueños.
Cantar sin carne lírica que llene
de risas el silencio
(una bandada de palomas ciegas
lanzadas al misterio).
Cantar que vaya al alma de las cosas
y al alma de los vientos
y que descanse al fin en la alegría
del corazón eterno.
Garcia Lorca’s Main Works
Poetry collections
• Impresiones y paisajes (Impressions and
Landscapes 1918)
• Libro de poemas (Book of Poems 1921)
• Poema del cante jondo (Poem of Deep Song;
written in 1921 but not published until 1931)
• Suites (written between 1920 and 1923,
published posthumously in 1983)
• Canciones (Songs written between 1921 and
1924, published in 1927)
• Romancero gitano (Gypsy Ballads 1928)
• Odes (written 1928)
• Poeta en Nueva York (written 1930 – published
posthumously in 1940, first translation into English as The Poet in New York
1940)[57]
• Seis poemas gallegos (Six Galician poems
1935)
• Sonetos del amor oscuro (Sonnets of Dark Love
1936, not published until 1983)
• Lament for the Death of a Bullfighter and
Other Poems (1937)
• Primeras canciones (First Songs 1936)
Play
• Christ: A Religious Tragedy (unfinished 1917)
• El maleficio de la mariposa (The Butterfly's
Evil Spell: written 1919–20, first production 1920)
• Los títeres de Cachiporra (The Billy-Club
Puppets: written 1922-5, first production 1937)
• Mariana Pineda (written 1923–25, first
production 1927)
• La zapatera prodigiosa (The Shoemaker's
Prodigious Wife: written 1926–30, first production 1930, revised 1933)
• El público (The Public: written 1929–30,
first production 1972)
• Así que pasen cinco años (When Five Years
Pass: written 1931, first production 1945)
• Bodas de sangre (Blood Wedding: written 1932,
first production 1933)
• Comedia sin título (Play Without a Title:
written 1936, first production 1986)
• La casa de Bernarda Alba (The House of
Bernarda Alba: written 1936, first production 1945)
Los
sueños de mi prima Aurelia (Dreams of my Cousin Aurelia: unfinished 1938)
