Federico García Lorca

Federico García Lorca Poems

In the sky there is nobody asleep. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
The creatures of the moon sniff and prowl about their cabins.
The living iguanas will come and bite the men who do not dream,
...

translated by Will Kirkland

The moon came into the forge
in her bustle of flowering nard.
...

But like love
the archers
are blind
...

I want to sleep the dream of the apples,
to withdraw from the tumult of cemetries.
I want to sleep the dream of that child
who wanted to cut his heart on the high seas.
...

In the green morning
I wanted to be a heart.
A heart.
...

1. Cogida and death

At five in the afternoon.
It was exactly five in the afternoon.
...

In Vienna there are ten little girls,
a shoulder for death to cry on,
and a forest of dried pigeons.
There is a fragment of tomorrow
...

Tree, tree
dry and green.
...

La guitarra,
hace llorar a los sueños.
El sollozo de las almas
perdidas,
...

Weeping,
I go down the street
Grotesque, without solution
With the sadness of Cyrano
...

No one understood the perfume
of the dark magnolia of your womb.
Nobody knew that you tormented
a hummingbird of love between your teeth.
...

12.

A tree of blood soaks the morning
where the newborn woman groans.
Her voice leaves glass in the wound
and on the panes, a diagram of bone.
...

13.

Dawn in New York has
four columns of mire
and a hurricane of black pigeons
splashing in the putrid waters.
...

Si muero
Dejad el balcón abierto

El niño come naranjas
...

Each afternoon in Granada,
each afternoon, a child dies.
Each afternoon the water sits down
and chats with its companions.
...

En la redonda
encrucijada,
seis doncellas
bailan.
...

Find them a conscience declared in
an absolute casual
sun, find them a feat
declared by the happy
...

Y que yo me la llevé al río
creyendo que era mozuela,
pero tenía marido.
Fue la noche de Santiago
...

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.
...

Sobre el cielo
de las margaritas ando.

Yo imagino esta tarde
...

Federico García Lorca Biography

Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He may have been shot by anti-communist forces during the Spanish Civil War In 2008, a Spanish judge opened an investigation into Lorca's death. The Garcia Lorca family eventually dropped objections to the excavation of a potential gravesite near Alfacar. However, no human remains were found. Life and career Early years García Lorca was born on 5 June 1898, in Fuente Vaqueros, a small town a few miles west of Granada, southern Spain.His father, Federico García Rodríguez, was a landowner with a farm in the fertile vega surrounding Granada and a comfortable villa in the heart of the city. García Rodríguez saw his fortunes rise with a boom in the sugar industry. García Lorca's mother, Vicenta Lorca Romero, was a teacher and gifted pianist. In 1909, when the boy was 11, his family moved to the city of Granada. For the rest of his life, he maintained the importance of living close to the natural world, praising his upbringing in the country. In 1915, after graduating from secondary school, García Lorca attended Sacred Heart University. During this time his studies included law, literature and composition. Throughout his adolescence he felt a deeper affinity for theatre and music than literature, training fully as a classical pianist, his first artistic inspirations arising from the scores of Debussy, Chopin and Beethoven. Later, with his friendship with composer Manuel de Falla Spanish folklore became his muse. García Lorca did not begin a career in writing until his piano teacher died in 1916 and his first prose works such as "Nocturne", "Ballade" and "Sonata" drew on musical forms. His milieu of young artists gathered in El Rinconcillo at the cafe Alameda in Granada. During 1916 and 1917, García Lorca traveled throughout Castile, Léon, and Galicia, in northern Spain, with a professor of his university, who also encouraged him to write his first book, Impresiones y Paisajes (Impressions and Landscapes – published 1918). Don Fernando de los Rios persuaded García Lorca's parents to allow the boy to enrol at the progressive, Oxbridge-inspired Residencia de estudiantes in Madrid in 1919. As a young writer At the Residencia de estudiantes in Madrid García Lorca befriended Manuel de Falla, Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí and many other creative artists who were, or would become, influential across Spain. He was taken under the wing of the poet Juan Ramon Jimenez, becoming close to playwright Eduardo Marquina and Gregorio Martínez Sierra, the Director of Madrid's Teatro Eslava.In 1919–20, at Sierra's invitation, he wrote and staged his first play, El maleficio de la mariposa (The Butterfly's Evil Spell). It was a verse play dramatising the impossible love between a cockroach and a butterfly, with a supporting cast of other insects; it was laughed off stage by an unappreciative public after only four performances and influenced García Lorca's attitude to the theatre-going public for the rest of his career. He would later claim that Mariana Pineda, written in 1927, was, in fact, his first play. During the time at the Residencia de estudiantes he pursued degrees in law and philosophy, though he had more interest in writing than study. García Lorca's first book of poems was published in 1921, collecting work written from 1918 and selected with the help of his brother Francisco. They concern the themes of religious faith, isolation and nature that had filled his prose reflections. Early in 1922 at Granada García Lorca joined the composer Manuel de Falla in order to promote the Concurso de Cante Jondo, a festival dedicated to enhance flamenco performance. The year before Lorca had begun to write his Poema del cante jondo ("Poem of the deep song", not published until 1931), so he naturally composed an essay on the art of flamenco, and began to speak publicly in support of the Concurso. At the music festival in June he met the celebrated Manuel Torre, a flamenco cantaor. The next year in Granada he also collaborated with Falla and others on the musical production of a play for children, adapted by Lorca from an Andalucian story. Inspired by the same structural form of sequence as "Deep song", his collection Suites (1923) was never finished and not published until 1983. Over the next few years García Lorca became increasingly involved in Spain's avant-garde. He published poetry collections including Canciones (Songs) and Romancero Gitano (Gypsy Ballads, 1928), which became his best known book of poetry. It was a highly stylised imitation of the ballads and poems that were still being told throughout the Spanish countryside. Philologists such as Ramón Menéndez Pidal worked with him to collect versions from the south, many in existence since the Middle Ages. García Lorca describes the work as a "carved altar piece" of Andalusia with "gypsies, horses, archangels, planets, its Jewish and Roman breezes, rivers, crimes, the everyday touch of the smuggler and the celestial note of the naked children of Córdoba. A book that hardly expresses visible Andalusia at all, but where the hidden Andalusia trembles". In 1928, the book brought him fame across Spain and the Hispanic world, and he only gained notability as a playwright much later. For the rest of his life, the writer would search for the elements of Andaluce culture, trying to find its essence without resorting to the "picturesque" or the cliched use of "local colour". His second play, Mariana Pineda, with stage settings by Salvador Dalí, opened to great acclaim in Barcelona in 1927. In 1926, García Lorca wrote the play The Shoemaker's Prodigious Wife, which would not be shown until the early 1930s. It was a farce about fantasy, based on the relationship between a flirtatious, petulant wife and a hen-pecked shoemaker. From 1925 to 1928 he was passionately involved with Dalí. The friendship with Lorca had a strong element of mutual passion, but Dalí (decades later) rejected the erotic advances of the poet. With the success of "Gypsy Ballads", came an estrangement from Dali and the breakdown of a love affair with sculptor Emilio Soriano Aladrén. These brought on an increasing depression, a situation exacerbated by his anguish over his homosexuality. He felt he was trapped between the persona of the successful author, which he was forced to maintain in public, and the tortured, authentic self, which he could only acknowledge in private. He also had the sense that he was being pigeon-holed as a "gypsy poet". He wrote: "The gypsies are a theme. And nothing more. I could just as well be a poet of sewing needles or hydraulic landscapes. Besides, this gypsyism gives me the appearance of an uncultured, ignorant and primitive poet that you know very well I’m not. I don't want to be typecast". Growing estrangement between García Lorca and his closest friends reached its climax when surrealists Dalí and Luis Buñuel collaborated on their 1929 film Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog). García Lorca interpreted it, perhaps erroneously, as a vicious attack upon himself. At this time Dalí also met his future wife Gala. Aware of these problems (though not perhaps of their causes), García Lorca's family arranged for him to take a lengthy visit to the United States in 1929–30. Green wind. Green branches. The ship out on the sea and the horse on the mountain. With the shadow at the waist she dreams on her balcony, green flesh, green hair, with eyes of cold silver. "Romance Sonámbulo" ("Ballad of the Sleepwalker)" In June 1929, García Lorca travelled to America with Fernando de los Rios on the SS Olympic, a sister liner to the Titanic.They stayed mostly in New York City, where Rios started a lecture tour and García Lorca enrolled at Columbia University School of General Studies, funded by his parents. He studied English but, as before, was more absorbed by writing than study. He also spent time in Vermont and later in Havana, Cuba. His collection Poeta en Nueva York (A poet in New York, published posthumously in 1942) explores alienation and isolation through some graphically experimental poetic techniques and was influenced by the Wall Street crash which he personally witnessed. This condemnation of urban capitalist society and materialistic modernity was a sharp departure from his earlier work and label as a folklorist. His play of this time, El Público (The Public), was not published until the late 1970s and has never been published in its entirety, the manuscript lost. However, the Hispanic Society of America in New York City retains several of his personal letters. The Republic García Lorca's return to Spain in 1930 coincided with the fall of the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera and the re-establishment of the Spanish Republic. In 1931, García Lorca was appointed as director of a university student theatre company, Teatro Universitario la Barraca (The Shack). This was funded by the Second Republic's Ministry of Education, and it was charged with touring Spain's remotest rural areas in order to introduce audiences to radically modern interpretations of classic Spanish theatre free of charge. With a portable stage, and little equipment, they sought to bring theatre to people who had never seen any, with García Lorca directing as well as acting. He commented: "Outside of Madrid, the theatre, which is in its very essence a part of the life of the people, is almost dead, and the people suffer accordingly, as they would if they had lost their two eyes, or ears, or a sense of taste. We [La Barraca] are going to give it back to them". His experiences of travelling through impoverished rural Spain and New York, (particularly amongst the disenfranchised African American population), transformed him into a passionate advocate of the theatre of social action. He wrote "The theatre is a school of weeping and of laughter, a free forum, where men can question norms that are outmoded or mistaken and explain with living example the eternal norms of the human heart". While touring with La Barraca, García Lorca wrote his now best-known plays, the Rural Trilogy of Bodas de Sangre (Blood Wedding), Yerma and La Casa de Bernarda Alba (The House of Bernarda Alba), which all rebelled against the norms of bourgeois Spanish society. He called for a rediscovery of the roots of European theatre and the questioning of comfortable conventions such as the popular drawing room comedies of the time. His work challenged the accepted role of women in society and explored taboo issues of homoeroticism and class. García Lorca wrote little poetry in this last period of his life, declaring in 1936, “theatre is poetry that rises from the book and becomes human enough to talk and shout, weep and despair.” Travelling to Buenos Aires in 1933 to give lectures and direct the Argentine premiere of Blood Wedding, García Lorca spoke of his distilled theories on artistic creation and performance in the famous lecture Play and Theory of the Duende. This attempted to define a schema of artistic inspiration, arguing that great art depends upon a vivid awareness of death, connection with a nation's soil, and an acknowledgment of the limitations of reason. As well as returning to the classical roots of theatre, García Lorca also turned to traditional forms in poetry. His last poetic work Sonnets to his dark love (1936) was inspired by a passion for Rafael Rodriguez Rapun, secretary of La Barraca. The love sonnets are inspired by the 16th century poet San Juan de la Cruz. La Barraca's subsidy was cut in half by the new government in 1934, and its last performance was given in April 1936. Lorca kept Huerta de San Vicente as his summer house in Granada from 1926 to 1936. Here he wrote, totally or in part, some of his major works, among them When Five Years Pass (Así que pasen cinco años) (1931), Blood Wedding (Bodas de sangre) (1932), Yerma (1934) and Diván del Tamarit (1931–1936). The poet lived in the Huerta de San Vicente in the days just before his arrest and assassination in August 1936. Although García Lorca's artwork doesn't often receive attention he was also a keen artist. Death García Lorca left Madrid for his family home in Granada only three days before the Spanish Civil War broke out (July 1936).The Spanish political and social climate had greatly intensified after the murder of prominent monarchist and anti-Popular Front spokesman José Calvo Sotelo by Republican Assault Guards (Guardia de Asalto).[26] García Lorca knew that he would be suspect to the rising right wing for his outspoken liberal views.On 18 August, his brother-in-law, Manuel Fernández-Montesinos, the leftist mayor of Granada, was shot. Lorca was arrested that same afternoon. It is thought that García Lorca was shot and killed by Nationalist militia on 19 August 1936. The author Ian Gibson in his book The Assassination of García Lorca alleges that he was shot with three others (Joaquin Arcollas Cabezas, Francisco Galadi Mergal and Dioscoro Galindo Gonzalez) at a place known as the Fuente Grande, or Great Fountain in Spanish, which is on the road between Viznar and Alfacar. Motives for Assassination Significant controversy remains about the motives and details of Lorca's murder. Personal, non-political motives have also been suggested. García Lorca's biographer, Stainton, states that his killers made remarks about his sexual orientation, suggesting that it played a role in his death. Ian Gibson suggests that García Lorca's assassination was part of a campaign of mass killings intended to eliminate supporters of the Marxist Popular Front. However, Gibson proposes that rivalry between the anti-communist Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right (CEDA) and the Falange was a major factor in Lorca's death. Former CEDA Parliamentary Deputy Ramon Ruiz Alonso arrested García Lorca at the Rosales' home, and was the one responsible for the original denunciation that led to the arrest warrant being issued. It has been argued that García Lorca was apolitical and had many friends in both Republican and Nationalist camps. Gibson disputes this in his 1978 book about the poet's death. He cites, for example, Mundo Obrero's published manifesto, which Lorca later signed, and alleges that Lorca was an active supporter of the Popular Front.[33] Lorca read this manifesto out at a banquet in honour of fellow poet Rafael Alberti on 9 February 1936. Many anti-communists were sympathetic to Lorca or assisted him. In the days before his arrest he found shelter in the house of the artist and leading Falange member Luis Rosales. Indeed, evidence suggests that Rosales was very nearly shot as well for helping García Lorca by the Civil Governor Valdes.The Basque Communist poet Gabriel Celaya wrote in his memoirs that he once found García Lorca in the company of Falangist José Maria Aizpurua. Celaya further wrote that Lorca dined every Friday with Falangist founder and leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera. On 11 March 1937 an article appeared in the Falangist press denouncing the murder and lionizing García Lorca; the article opened: "The finest poet of Imperial Spain has been assassinated." Jean-Louis Schonberg also put forward the 'homosexual jealousy' theory.The dossier on the murder, compiled at Franco's request and referred to by Gibson and others, has yet to surface. The first published account of an attempt to locate Lorca's grave can be found in British traveller and Hispanist Gerald Brenan's book 'The Face of Spain'. Despite early attempts such as Brenan's in 1949, the site remained undiscovered throughout the Francoist era. Excavation at Alfácar In late October 2009, a team of archaeologists and historians from the University of Granada began excavations outside Alfácar.The site was identified three decades ago by a man who claimed to have helped dig Lorca's grave.Lorca was thought to be buried with at least three other men beside a winding mountain road that connects the villages of Viznar and Alfácar. There is a growing desire in Spain to come to terms with the civil war, which for decades was not openly discussed. The judge in the case, Baltasar Garzón, formally requested local government and churches to open their files on the thousands of people who disappeared during the Civil War and under the dictatorship of General Franco until 1975. The excavations began at the request of another victim's family. Following a long-standing objection, the Lorca family also gave their permission. In October 2009 Francisco Espinola, a spokesman for the Justice Ministry of the Andalusian regional government, said that after years of pressure García Lorca's body would "be exhumed in a matter of weeks". Lorca's relatives, who had initially opposed an exhumation, said they might provide a DNA sample in order to identify his remains. In late November 2009, after two weeks of excavating the site, organic material believed to be human bones was recovered. The remains were taken to the University of Granada for examination. But in mid December 2009, doubts were raised as to whether the poet's remains would be found. The dig produced "not one bone, item of clothing or bullet shell", said Begoña Álvarez, justice minister of Andalucia. She added, "the soil was only 40cm (16in) deep, making it too shallow for a grave." Censorship Francisco Franco's Falangist regime placed a general ban on García Lorca's work, which was not rescinded until 1953. That year, a (censored) Obras Completas (Complete works) was released. Following this, Bodas de Sangre (Blood Wedding), Yerma and La casa de Bernarda Alba (The House of Bernarda Alba) were successfully played on the main Spanish stages. Obras Completas did not include his late heavily homoerotic Sonnets of Dark Love, written in November 1935 and shared only with close friends. They were lost until 1983/4 when they were finally published in draft form (no final manuscripts have ever been found.) It was only after Franco's death that García Lorca's life and death could be openly discussed in Spain. This was due not only to political censorship, but also to the reluctance of the García Lorca family to allow publication of unfinished poems and plays prior to the publication of a critical edition of his works. South African Roman Catholic poet Roy Campbell, who enthusiastically supported the Nationalists both during and after the Civil War, later produced acclaimed translations of Lorca's work. In his poem, The Martyrdom of F. Garcia Lorca, Campbell wrote, Not only did he lose his life By shots assassinated: But with a hammer and a knife Was after that -- translated. Memorials In Granada, the city of his birth, the Parque Federico Garcia Lorca is dedicated to his memory and includes the Huerta de San Vicente, the Lorca family summer home, opened to the public in 1995 as a museum. The grounds, including nearly two hectares of land, the two adjoining houses, artworks and the original furnishings have been preserved. There is a new statue of Lorca on the Avenida de la Constitución in the city centre, and a new cultural centre bearing his name is currently under construction and will play a major role in preserving and disseminating his works. The Parque Federico Garcia Lorca, in Alfacar, is situated close to Fuente Grande and was the location of the unsuccessful 2009 excavations that failed to locate Lorca´s resting place. Close to the olive tree indicated by some as marking the location of the grave, there is a stone memorial to Federico Garcia Lorca and all victims of the Civil War, 1936-39. Flowers are laid at the memorial every year on the anniversary of his death, and a commemorative event including music and readings of the poet´s works is held every year in the park to mark the anniversary. On the 17th August 2011, to remember the 75th anniversary of Lorca´s assassination and to celebrate his life and legacy, this event included dance, song, poetry and dramatic readings and attracted hundreds of spectators. At the Barranco de Viznar, between Viznar and Alfacar, there is a memorial stone bearing the words "Lorca eran todos, 18-8-2002". The Barranco de Viznar is the site of mass graves and was proposed as another possible location of the poet´s remains. García Lorca is honoured by a statue prominently located in Madrid's Plaza de Santa Ana. Political philosopher David Crocker reports that "the statue, at least, is still an emblem of the contested past: "each day, the Left puts a red kerchief on the neck of the statue, and someone from the Right comes later to take it off." The Lorca Foundation, directed by Lorca's niece Laura García Lorca, sponsors the celebration and dissemination of the writer's work and is currently building the Lorca Centre in Madrid. The Lorca family gave all Lorca's documentation to the foundation which holds it on their behalf. Poetry Based on Lorca Greek poet Nikos Kavvadias's poem Federico García Lorca, in Kavvadias' Marabu collection, is dedicated to the memory of García Lorca and juxtaposes his death with war crimes in the village of Distomo, Greece, and in Kessariani in Athens, where the Nazis executed over two hundred people in each city. Allen Ginsberg's poem "A Supermarket in California" makes mention to Lorca mysteriously acting out with a watermelon. Spanish poet Luis Cernuda, who is also part of the Generation of '27, wrote the elegy A un poeta muerto (F.G.L.). Hungarian poet Miklos Radnoti also wrote a poem about García Lorca in 1937 entitled Federico García Lorca. The New York based Spanish language poet Giannina Braschi published El imperio de los sueños, a poetic homage to Poet in New York (1st edition: Anthropos editorial del hombre, 1988; 2nd edition: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico). Bob Kaufman and Gary Mex Glazner have both written tribute poems entitled Lorca. Harold Norse has a poem, We Bumped Off Your Friend the Poet, inspired by a review of Ian Gibson's Death of Lorca. The poem first appeared in Hotel Nirvana, and more recently in In the Hub of the Fiery Force, Collected Poems of Harold Norse 1934–2003 The Spanish poet Antonio Machado wrote the poem El Crimen Fue en Granada, in reference to García Lorca's death. The Turkish poet Turgut Uyar wrote the poem Three Poems For Federico García Lorca including a line in Spanish:obra completas The Irish poet Michael Hartnett published an English translation of García Lorca's poetry. García Lorca is also a recurring character in much of Hartnett's poetry, most notably in the poem A Farewell to English.. Deep image, a poetic form coined by Jerome Rothenberg and Robert Kelly, is inspired by García Lorca's Deep Song. Vietnamese poet Thanh Thao wrote The guitar of Lorca and was set to music by Thanh Tung. A Canadian poet named John Mackenzie published several poems inspired by García Lorca in his collection Letters I Didn't Write, including one titled Lorca's Lament. In 1945, Greek poet Odysseas Elytis (Nobel Prize for Literature, 1979) translated and published part of García Lorca's Romancero Gitano. Pablo Neruda wrote Ode to Federico García Lorca (1935) and Eulogy For Federico García Lorca. Robert Creeley wrote a poem called "After Lorca" (1952) Jack Spicer wrote a book of poems called "After Lorca" (1957). The Russian poet Yevgeni Yevtushenko wrote the poem "When they murdered Lorca" in which he portrays Lorca as being akin to Don Quixote—an immortal symbol of one's devotion to his ideals and perpetual struggle for them. British poet John Siddique wrote "Desire for Sight (After Lorca)" included in Poems from a Northern Soul Musical works based on Lorca Spanish flamenco singer Camarón de la Isla's album "La leyenda del tiempo" contains lyrics written by or based on works by Lorca and much of the album is about his legacy. Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas composed Homenaje a Federico García Lorca (a 3 movement work for chamber orchestra) shortly after García Lorca's death, performing the work in Spain during 1937.[59] The Italian avant garde composer Luigi Nono wrote a composition in 1953 entitled Epitaffio per Federico García Lorca. The American composer George Crumb utilizes much of García Lorca's poetry in works such as his Ancient Voices of Children, his four books of Madrigals, and parts of his Makrokosmos. Composer Osvaldo Golijov and playwright David Henry Hwang wrote the one-act opera Ainadamar ("Fountain of Tears") about the death of García Lorca, recalled years later by his friend the actress Margarita Xirgu, who could not save him. It opened in 2003, with a revised version in 2005. A recording of the work released in 2006 on the Deutsche Grammophon label (Catalog #642902) won the 2007 Grammy awards for Best Classical Contemporary Composition and Best Opera Recording. Finnish modernist composer Einojuhani Rautavaara has composed Suite de Lorca ("Lorca-sarja") for a mixed choir to the lyrics of García Lorca's poems Canción de jinete, El grito, La luna asoma and Malagueña (1972). The Pogues dramatically retell the story of his murder in the song 'Lorca's Novena' on their Hell's Ditch album. Reginald Smith Brindle composed the guitar piece Four Poems of Garcia Lorca (1975) and El Polifemo de Oro (for guitar, 1982) based on two Lorca poems Adivinanza de la Guitarra and Las Seis Cuerdas [60] Composer Dmitri Shostakovich wrote the first two movements of his 14th Symphony based around García Lorca poems. The French composer Maurice Ohana set to music García Lorca's poem Lament for the death of a Bullfighter (Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez Mejías) recorded by the conductor Ataúlfo Argenta in the 1950s Spanish rock band Marea made a rock version of the poem Romance de la Guardia Civil española, named "Ciudad de los Gitanos". In 1968, Joan Baez sang translated renditions of García Lorca's poems, "Gacela Of The Dark Death" and "Casida of the Lament" on her spoken-word poetry album, Baptism. In 1986, Leonard Cohen's English translation of the poem "Pequeño vals vienés" by García Lorca reached #1 in the Spanish single charts (as "Take This Waltz", music by Cohen). Cohen has described García Lorca as being his idol in his youth, and named his daughter Lorca Cohen for that reason.[61] Missa Lorca by Italian composer Corrado Margutti (2008) is a choral setting of the Latin Mass text and the poetry of Lorca. U.S. premiere, 2010. In 1967, composer Mikis Theodorakis set to music seven poems of the Romancero Gitano – translated into Greek by Odysseas Elitis in 1945. This work was premiered in Rome in 1970 under the same title. In 1981, under commission of the Komische Oper in Berlin, the composition was orchestrated as a symphonic work entitled Lorca. In the mid 1990s, Theodorakis rearranged the work as an instrumental piece for guitar and symphony orchestra. In 1989, American composer Stephen Edward Dick created new music for Lorca's ballad Romance Sonambulo, based on the original text, and with permission from Lorca's Estate. The piece is set for solo guitar, baritone and flamenco dance, and was performed in 1990 at the New Performance Gallery in San Francisco. The second performance took place in Canoga Park, Los Angeles in 2004. American composer Geoffrey Gordon composed Lorca Musica per cello solo (2000), utilizing themes from his 1995 three act ballet, The House of Bernarda Alba (1995), for American cellist Elizabeth Morrow. The work was recorded on Morrow's Soliloquy CD on the Centaur label and was featured at the 2000 World Cello Congress. Three suites from the ballet, for chamber orchestra, have also been extracted from the ballet score by the composer. The Spanish guitarist José María Gallardo del Rey composed his 'Lorca Suite' in 2003 as a tribute to the great poet. Taking Lorca's folksong compilations 'Canciones Españolas Antiguas' as his starting point, Gallardo del Rey adds the colour and passion of his native Andalucia, incorporating new harmonisations and freely composed link passages that fuse classical and flamenco techniques. Catalán composer Joan Amargós wrote Homenatje a Lorca for alto saxophone in piano. Its three movements are based on three Lorca poems: Los cuatro muleros, Zorongo, and Anda jaleo. Composer Brent Parker wrote Lorca's Last Walk for piano solo. This was on the Grade 7 syllabus of the Royal Irish Academy of Music's piano exams, 2003-2008. Greek musician Thanasis Papakonstantinou composed Άυπνη Πόλη' with part of Lorca's "Poeta en Nueva York", translated to Greek by Maria Efstathiadi. Theatre, film and television based on Lorca Federico García Lorca: A Murder in Granada ( 1976) directed by Humberto Lopez y Guerra and produced by the Swedish Television. In October 1980 the New York Times described the transmission of the film by Spanish Television in June that same year as attracting "one of the largest audiences in the history of Spanish Television". Playwright Nilo Cruz wrote the surrealistic drama Lorca in a Green Dress about the life, death, and imagined afterlife of García Lorca. The play was first performed in 2003 at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The Cruz play Beauty of the Father (2010) also features Lorca's ghost as a key character. British playwright Peter Straughan wrote a play (later adapted as a radio play) based on García Lorca's life, The Ghost of Federico Garcia Lorca Which Can Also Be Used as a Table. TVE broadcast a six hour mini-series based on key episodes on García Lorca's life in 1987. British actor Nickolas Grace played the poet, although he was dubbed by a Spanish actor. There is a 1997 film called The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca, also known as Death in Granada, based on a biography by Ian Gibson. The film earned an Imagen Award for best film. Miguel Hermoso's La Luz Prodigiosa (The End of a Mystery) is a Spanish film based on Fernando Macías' novel with the same name, which examines what might have happened if García Lorca had survived his execution at the outset of the Spanish Civil War. British Screenwriter Philippa Goslett was inspired by García Lorca's close friendship with Salvador Dalí. The resulting biopic Little Ashes (2009) depicts the relationship in the 1920s and 1930s between García Lorca, Dalí, and Luis Buñuel. Bodas De Sangre (Blood Wedding) is the first part of a ballet / flamenco film trilogy directed by Carlos Saura and starring Antonio Gades and Cristina Hoyos (1981))

The Best Poem Of Federico García Lorca

City That Does Not Sleep

In the sky there is nobody asleep. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
The creatures of the moon sniff and prowl about their cabins.
The living iguanas will come and bite the men who do not dream,
and the man who rushes out with his spirit broken will meet on the
street corner
the unbelievable alligator quiet beneath the tender protest of the
stars.

Nobody is asleep on earth. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
In a graveyard far off there is a corpse
who has moaned for three years
because of a dry countryside on his knee;
and that boy they buried this morning cried so much
it was necessary to call out the dogs to keep him quiet.

Life is not a dream. Careful! Careful! Careful!
We fall down the stairs in order to eat the moist earth
or we climb to the knife edge of the snow with the voices of the dead
dahlias.
But forgetfulness does not exist, dreams do not exist;
flesh exists. Kisses tie our mouths
in a thicket of new veins,
and whoever his pain pains will feel that pain forever
and whoever is afraid of death will carry it on his shoulders.

One day
the horses will live in the saloons
and the enraged ants
will throw themselves on the yellow skies that take refuge in the
eyes of cows.

Another day
we will watch the preserved butterflies rise from the dead
and still walking through a country of gray sponges and silent boats
we will watch our ring flash and roses spring from our tongue.
Careful! Be careful! Be careful!
The men who still have marks of the claw and the thunderstorm,
and that boy who cries because he has never heard of the invention
of the bridge,
or that dead man who possesses now only his head and a shoe,
we must carry them to the wall where the iguanas and the snakes
are waiting,
where the bear's teeth are waiting,
where the mummified hand of the boy is waiting,
and the hair of the camel stands on end with a violent blue shudder.

Nobody is sleeping in the sky. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is sleeping.
If someone does close his eyes,
a whip, boys, a whip!
Let there be a landscape of open eyes
and bitter wounds on fire.
No one is sleeping in this world. No one, no one.
I have said it before.

No one is sleeping.
But if someone grows too much moss on his temples during the
night,
open the stage trapdoors so he can see in the moonlight
the lying goblets, and the poison, and the skull of the theaters.

Federico García Lorca Comments

Fabrizio Frosini 30 November 2015

****************************************************** ''Pequeno Vals Vienes'' - (''Little Viennese Waltz'') En Viena hay diez muchachas, un hombro donde solloza la muerte y un bosque de palomas disecadas. Hay un fragmento de la manana en el mueso de la escarcha Hay un salon con mil ventanas Ay, ay, ay, ay, Toma este vals con la boca cerrada Este vals, este vals, este vals, de si, de muerte y de conac que moja su cola en el mar Te quiero, te quiero, te quiero, con la butaca y el libro muerto, por el melancolico pasillo en el oscuro desvan del lirio, en nuestra cama de la luna y en la danza que suena la tortuga. Ay, ay, ay, ay, Toma este vals con la boca cerrada En Viena hay cuatro espejos donde juegan tu boca y los ecos, Hay una muerte para piano, que pinta de azul a los muchachos. Hay mendigos por los tejados Hay frescas guirnaldas de llanto Ay, ay, ay, ay, Toma este vals con la boca cerrada Porque te quiero, te quiero, amor mio, en el desvan donde juegan los ninos, sonando viejas luces de Hungria por los rumores de la tarde tibia, viendo ovejas y lirios de nieve por el silencio oscuro de tu frente. Ay, ay, ay, ay, Toma este vals con la boca cerrada En viena bailare contigo con un disfraz que tenga cabeza de rio. Mira que orillas tengo de jacintos Dejare mi boca entre tus piernas, mi alma en fotografias y azucenas, y en las ondas oscuras de tu andar quiero, amor mio, amor mio, dejar, violin y sepulcro, las cintas del vals. ______________________________________________ Federico Garcia Lorca lived in New-York City in 1929-1930. There he wrote the collection ''Poeta en Nueva-York'', which includes ''Pequeno Vals Vienes'' (''Little Viennese Waltz'') This poem was translated by Leonard Cohen as “Take This Waltz” (do you know his song?) ______________________________________________

187 0 Reply
Kate Hobbs 26 May 2013

Can anyone tell me the name of Federico Lorca's poem which contains the words tell my friends that I am dead.....I am wrapped in that blue ground that is the my... Or something similar. Many thanks

94 37 Reply
Jlynne Thompson 03 November 2013

I'm a fan of Lorca as well and new to the site. Is there a way to request a poem be added?

21 66 Reply
Fabrizio Frosini 21 April 2016

another poem by F.G. Lorca - short but beautiful (original Spanish text + Italian translation) ' El silencio ' - Poemas de Federico García Lorca Oye, hijo mío, el silencio. Es un silencio ondulado, un silencio, donde resbalan valles y ecos y que inclina las frentes hacia el suelo. - In ITALIAN: Ascolta figlio il silenzio. E' un silenzio ondulato, un silenzio dove scivolano valli ed echi e che piega le fronti al suolo

64 0 Reply
fleur de lys 26 July 2009

For the most unforgettable and exquisite verse by the great Lorca you can't go past 'Sonnet', published here in Spanish as 'Soneto'.

30 24 Reply
Phosphor Phyllum 11 July 2020

Hi Diane. The play is called " The Butterfly's Evil Spell."

1 0 Reply
diane morales 08 March 2020

i forgot to say that the characters in the poetic drama are all insects!

1 0 Reply
diane morales 08 March 2020

i have several acts from a play/poetry by garcia lorca - does anyone know what the title is? thank you!

1 0 Reply
renato 30 August 2019

where are pin pin pio pio pio y luz tu tu iuz...y jo sombra mudo horizontal neuesgrospatr@icloud.com

1 0 Reply
Nell Whyatt 01 August 2019

Please can someone tell me the Spanish title of 'Little Song of Seville' from Lorca's Songs and Ballads? Thanks so much! ! nell_whyatt@yahoo.co.uk! Thanksyou!

2 0 Reply

Federico García Lorca Quotes

The only things that the United States has given to the world are skyscrapers, jazz, and cocktails. That is all. And in Cuba, in our America, they make much better cocktails.

In Spain, the dead are more alive than the dead of any other country in the world.

To see you naked is to recall the Earth.

New York is something awful, something monstrous. I like to walk the streets, lost, but I recognize that New York is the world's greatest lie. New York is Senegal with machines.

Besides black art, there is only automation and mechanization.

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