Federico Garcia Lorca
Federico García Lorca is one of my favorite poets. I even followed his ghost to his city, Granada, Spain. There, I lived with my wife and a guitarist friend, in a cave in the Gypsy part of town Lorca visited so often while he lived, the Sacromonte.
On the occasion of his birthday, here is my translation of his poem, “La Guitarra,” which was used by Yale Prof. María Rosa Menocal in her lecture and monograph, “Poetry As An Act of History.” (She is also the author of the extraordinary book, “The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Christians, and Jews Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain,” which I recommend without reservation.)
The photograph above came from a post in The Volunteer, the Abraham Lincoln Brigade website, on new evidence as to the possible location of Lorca’s murdered body. He was murdered by fascist thugs during the Spanish Civil War.
The Guitar
By Federico García Lorca (La guitarr)
Trans. Curt Hopkins
The cry of the guitar
Begins.
The glasses of dawn
Are shattered.
It is useless
To quiet it.
Impossible
To shut it up.
It weeps monotonously
As water weeps,
As wind weeps
In a snow storm.
It is impossible
To stop it.
It cries for far away
Things.
Sand of the hot south
That begs for white camellias.
It weeps, arrow without a target,
Evening without a morning,
And the first bird
Dead upon the branch.
Oh, guitar!
Heart gravely wounded
By five swords.
Lovely article. Thanks for remember this spanish poet.
Here you can listen a EP where “La Argentinita” is singing and Lorca is on the piano.
http://open.spotify.com/artist/5mXN642qDvXbPRfw9HgOEl
I’ll check it out. Thanks.