Selected Poems by Federico Garcia Lorca

by Federico García Lorca

Mass Market Paperback

About the author

Born in Fuente Vaqueros, Granada, Spain, June 5 1898; died near Granada, August 19 1936, García Lorca is one of Spain's most deeply appreciated and highly revered poets and dramatists. His murder by the Nationalists at the start of the Spanish civil war brought sudden international fame, accompanied by an excess of political rhetoric which led a later generation to question his merits; after the inevitable slump, his reputation has recovered (largely with a shift in interest to the less obvious works). He must now be bracketed with Machado as one of the two greatest poets Spain has produced in the 20th century, and he is certainly Spain's greatest dramatist since the Golden Age.

Reviews

[Isabella :) · Rating 3 out of 5]

i dont like lorca, but rahaf was reading this when we first started dating. i have so many memories reading these poems with her. it was nice to take it home and read some with my brother too. i dont love lorca clearly it took me a long time to get through his writing. also didnt love him when i read poeta en nueva york.

all in all, i appreciate more things about his style this time around maybe because i spent so much time on it. anyways i love rahaf because this was his book and its mine now :)

[Hetian bias · Rating 5 out of 5]

“There is no one who in giving a kiss / does not feel the smile of faceless people, / and no one who in touching a newborn child / forgets the motionless skulls of horses.”

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lorca es un genio de la poesía. Cada palabra que él utiliza está elegida con precisión y habla de temas complejos con muchísima belleza y fluidez. El poema para el difunto Walt Whitman es uno de los más hermosos que he leído - “Ni un solo momento, viejo hermoso Walt Whitman, //he dejado de ver su barba llena de mariposas, //ni tus hombros de pana gastados por la luna// ni tus muslos de Apolo virginal, // ni tu voz como una columna de ceniza …” - que dulce, que maravilla. Las únicas cosas que falta este libro son un poco más sobre la vida y trabajo de Lorca, tal vez el contexto muy muy importante de su asesinato, y también un poco más contexto de esta particular colección de poesía. Hubo un poquito, pero quería más.

[Richard Jespers · Rating 4 out of 5]

A woman who taught Spanish at the high school where I once worked as an English teacher recommended that I read Lorca’s work, that we had “a lot in common.” She may have been referring to the fact that I, too, am gay. Perhaps she meant more.

I probably appreciated most of all the poems written when Lorca lived in New York City, not only because it is material with which I am more familiar but because he does seem to touch a nerve concerning our shared sexuality. In “Ode to Walt Whitman,” “the boys were singing showing, their waists” (131) as if to tempt me into this kingdom already tempting me with Whitman himself. Lorca invokes Whitman with descriptors such as “aged,” Whitman, “old man” Whitman and other variations of the grand poet’s name, as if he might rise from the very grave he has occupied, by that time, at least forty years. Almost as if Lorca wishes to crawl into the crypt with his hero.

Not for one moment, beautiful aged Walt Whitman,
have I failed to see your beard full of butterflies,
nor your shoulders of corduroy worn out by the moon,
nor your thighs of virginal Apollo,
nor your voice like a pillar of ashes:
ancient and beautiful as the mist,
you moaned like a bird
with the sex transfixed by a needle,
enemy of the satyr,
enemy of the vine,
and lover of bodies under the rough cloth (133)

I would be tempted to copy out the entire poem for readers, but it is best you secure your own version of the book, underline and savor the passages you wish to remember.

[giovi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Because it is just that man does not search for his delight in the jungle of blood of the following morning.
The sky has shores where to avoid life,
and certain bodies must not repeat themselves in the dawn.
Agony, agony, dream, ferment and dream.
This is the world, my friend, agony, agony.
The corpses decompose under the clock of the cities.
War passes weeping with a million grey rats, the rich give to their mistresses small illuminated moribunds,
and Life is not noble, nor good, nor sacred.


No one understood the perfume of the dark magnolia of your womb.
No one knew that you tormented a hummingbird of love between your teeth.
A thousand Persian ponies fell asleep in the moonlit plaza of your forehead, while through four nights I embraced your waist, enemy of the snow.
Between plaster and jasmines, your glance was a pale branch of seeds.
I sought in my heart to give you the ivory letters that say always,
always, always: garden of my agony, your body elusive always,
the blood of your veins in my mouth, your mouth already lightless for my death.

I have shut my balcony
because I do not want to hear the weeping, but from behind the grey walls nothing else is heard but the weeping.
There are very few angels that sing, there are very few dogs that bark,
a thousand violins fit into the palm of my hand.
But the weeping is an immense dog, the weeping is an immense angel, the weeping is an immense violin, the tears muzzle the wind,
nothing else is heard but the weeping.