Lorca/Blackburn: Poems of Federico García Lorca

by Federico García Lorca, Paul Blackburn

Blackburn's translations of Lorca's poems capture and convey the elements of traditionalism, violence, and sexuality inherent in the modern Spanish poet's work

Genres: Poetry

95 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1979

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

[Edita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ai, what work it costs me,
wanting you like I want you!

All on account of your love
the air
hurts me —
my heart,
even my hat.

Who will buy it for me,
this hatband I'm holding,
and this sorrow of linen,
white to make handkerchiefs?

Ai! what work it costs me,
wanting you like I want you.

[Jenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The poetry is so beautiful- I wish I had known less about his life before I read the poems.. His demise haunted me when I was reading; it would stab at my heart sometimes that he was so in love with his culture, family, friends and country that he died protecting his basic human right. The edition I read has the spanish version side by side with the english interpretation. My tongue tripped over the words but it sounded so lyrical in my head. Beautiful poetry by a beautiful human being.

[Meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not rating Lorca's poems (which are breathtaking) but Blackburn's translations. The curse of having the originals in Spanish next to the translations is that you can see everywhere Blackburn falters, even if on the whole his translations are good. He made some strange choices here and there and there are a lot of lines I wish had been translated just slightly differently. That's why this is 3 stars for me.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had high hopes because I had heard good things about Blackburn's translations. However, most were disappointingly overwrought, sometimes out of touch with (what I understand as) Lorca's linguistics.

[Nikki Rossiter · Rating 2 out of 5]

i can tell these poems are soooooo good.
i must don’t know wtf blackburn was doing translating them like this. literally he’ll just make new line breaks and create entire stanzas that are not there when the original doesn’t necessitate it based on form.
lorca is really really good though!

[Dana Sweeney · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are a few really, really breathtaking poems here (skillfully translated into English from the original Spanish by Paul Blackburn). Lorca burned so brightly in his short life. As a queer reader encountering his work a century afterward, Lorca’s longing on the page struck a deep chord with me. “Es Verdad” and “Gacela of the Unexpected Love” are stunning contributions to the queer poetic canon.

“siempre, siempre: garden of my agony, / your fugitive body for — always”

The assuredness in his writing is incredible. There are also some really moving poems in here alluding to violence preceding the Spanish Civil War. He could convincingly carry that range — the personal, the political.

Really makes me eager to read and learn more about Lorca. A great place to start.

[d · Rating 5 out of 5]

No one knew you were martyring
a loving hummingbird between your teeth.

I found this at Profernalia being sold for 10 pesos and every day I am grateful for that serendipity. This is one of my favorite reads this year. Lorca's poetry sounds so deliciously lyrical in his native Spanish. The rhyming and structure were delicious to read. He tackles themes of love, loss, and the landscape through fairy-tale imagery saturated in the vivid citrus of a Granada sunset. Blackburn tempers this wild thing into a still-poignant but more mature tone. Overall, I enjoyed both experiences and savored this collection piece by piece. Lorca is astounding.

[Greg Bem · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful short collection of the great Spaniard's works. Deserving of critical attention, and closer critique of the translation process.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad. Not bad. Some of the translation irked me a bit (I would have gone a different direction in a few cases), but overall it was pleasant, especially read aloud.