Poet in New York: Federico Garcia Lorca

I’ve been reading a new edition of Federico Garcia Lorca’s Poet in New York, and my understanding and appreciation of the dramatist and poet is deepening.

I'm familiar with the basic outline of his biography – born in 1898, gained a name as a young poet of some notoriety, died at the hands of General Franco’s forces in 1936. More than 20 years ago, I read an edition of his Collected Poems. But I was not familiar with the poem written while he was in New York, from 1929 to 1930.

His time in New York was connected to his attending Columbia University, which was apparently all of one semester. After that, he spent time with an American friend in Vermont and then went to Cuba. His family had sent him to New York to remove him from rumors of scandal circulating around him in Spain – connected to a failed love affair with a sculptor. Garcia Lorca realized he had been used to further the sculptor’s career, and he seemingly went willingly to New York.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Photograph by Bobby Mikul via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.