Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936) From Poet in New York
In his prefatory remarks before an audience assembled for a reading of Poet in New York in Buenos Aires in 1933, Garcia Lorca said, "I bring you a bitter and living poetry to lash your eyes open." [1]
Born June 5, 1898 near Granada, Federico Garcia Lorca's mother was a pianist [2] and school teacher. [3] His father was a landowner with interests in the sugar trade. [4] Garcia Lorca spent summers in the countryside of Granada. When mature, he wrote, "I love the land. All my emotions tie me to it. The first memories I have are of the earth." [5] He was first interested in music. He started writing after the death of his piano teacher, [6] and first wrote poetry before he was twenty. [7]
He had been interested in Andalusian folk music and incorporated it into his writing. But he was concerned about becoming "typecast" as a "gypsy poet." [12]
Garcia Lorca studied law in Madrid. He became interested in surrealist and experimental art and published with other avant garde artists known as Generation of 1927. [10] While in the Madrid, he befriended Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali, with whom he was interested in becoming intimate. Dali declined Garcia Lorca's advances, and Lorca became dispirited and estranged from Dali. [9] He fell in love with sculptor Emilio Aladren, but became depressed once again, when the affair ended. [11]
Garcia Lorca sailed for New York. He arrived at the time of the stock market crash of 1929. In his introduction to the Grove Press edition of Poet in New York, Angel Del Rio suggests, "if we bear this in mind, it is not difficult to understand how the loneliness that he brought with him found a perfect counterpoint in the disruption and lack of direction... the city forced upon him." [13] Del Rio says Garcia Lorca walked throughout New York, but only had relationships with other Spanish speakers. [14]
Garcia Lorca had returned to Spain by the time he Spanish Civil War broke out in July 1936. Though he had no political affiliations, [15] he was known as a homosexual and a friend of leftist intellectuals. He was taken into custody by Nationalists August 16, 1936 . It is believed he was tortured and shot the next day. He is believed to have been buried in a mass grave, but his body has never been recovered. [16]
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Poems Read: (Note: I read from translation by Ben Belitt from Poet in New York, Grove Press, 1955)
Back from a Walk (not available on line)
Landscape of the Vomiting Multitudes
http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Federico_Garcia_Lorca/16082
Dawn (translation by Stephen Spender and J. L. Gili Interesting to compare with the one I read by Ben Belitt)
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=180659
Cow (not available on line)
Death (not available on line)
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Sources and Notes
[1] Alfredo de la Guardia in Garcia Lorca: persona y creación, (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sur, 1941) from Poet in New York, Federico Garcia Lorca, translated by Ben Belitt, Grove Press, New York, 1955.p. 183
[2][9] Wikipedia: Garcia Lorca
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Garc%C3%ADa_Lorca
[3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [10] [11] [12] [15] [16]BooksFactory: Garcia Lorca, Federico
http://www.booksfactory.com/writers/lorca.htm
[13] Angel Del Rio, Introduction: Poet in New York: Twenty-Five Years After, in Poet in New York, Federico Garcia Lorca, translated by Ben Belitt, Grove Press, New York, 1955.p. Xxiii
[14] page xvi
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11:54
BIOGRAFÍA Federico García Lorcaby 2527ministro9,787 views
These deeply felt poems put one in a mood
Idlinfarm 1 year ago 4