Archive for Federico Garcia Lorca

Sonnet of the Sweet Complaint

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , on August 28, 2012 by telescoper

Never let me lose the marvel 
of your statue-like eyes, or the accent 
the solitary rose of your breath 
places on my cheek at night.
I am afraid of being, on this shore, 
a branchless trunk, and what I most regret 
is having no flower, pulp, or clay 
for the worm of my despair.
If you are my hidden treasure, 
if you are my cross, my dampened pain, 
if I am a dog, and you alone my master,
never let me lose what I have gained, 
and adorn the branches of your river 
with leaves of my estranged Autumn.

by Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936).

This poem is from a collection called Sonetos del amor oscuro (“Sonnets of Dark Love”), which contains the last verses ever written by Lorca. They were written to a young man, with whom the poet had a secret love affair, whose identity remained unknown until earlier this year (2012) when letters and other documents were found which revealed him to be the (then) 19-year old Juan Ramírez de Lucas.

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There’s a shoulder where death comes to cry

Posted in Music, Poetry with tags , , , on July 26, 2012 by telescoper

I heard this song Take this Waltz by Leonard Cohen a long time ago, and found it very mysterious as I didn’t know what it was about. Lately I found this youtube clip with a preface by Mr Cohen himself that explains that it is a tribute to the Spanish Poet Federico Garcia Lorca. I can’t say I know much about Lorca’s poetry, even in English translation, but I wish I did.

Lorca was born in 1898, and was murdered in 1936 by fascists during the Spanish Civil War. His body was never found.

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