now a branch and now a nightingale By Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936 from Poet in Spain, translated by Sarah Arvio
Every April (America's 'National Poetry Month' which has spread online to become international) the publisher Knopf posts a poem a day from its distinguished collection, to people who ask to be put on that email list. (To sign up for next time, click this link – or you can view all the poems they share, and the publications they'e from, at Knopf's Tumblr.) The two poems above formed one of their mail-outs this year, with the following note:
While working on Poet in Spain, her translations of the great García Lorca, the poet Sarah Arvio spent time with the original drafts of his famous Dark Love Sonnets, on folded-over sheets of grayish stationery from the Hotel Victoria, in Valencia. Composed for a male lover, the sonnets were, she relates, “rapidly written with a blunt pencil in the same hand . . . in a hotel room; my sense is that he wrote them without a pause, perhaps in one day or one weekend.” She remarks on the stunning perfection of what appear to be first drafts—or, at any rate, the only versions of the poems that have come down to us, given the poet’s murder by Fascist forces very close to the time of their composition, and the subsequent banning of Lorca’s works by Franco’s regime. Though Lorca died in 1936, the sonnet sequence did not reach the reading world until the 1980s; however, it has no equal in conveying an intense passion that is fatefully braided with the mortal necessity of secrecy and the terror of persecution, which, alas, were prescient. Along with the eleven now eternal sonnets, Arvio offers, for the first time in English, a fragment found among the poet’s manuscripts which may have been the opening octet of another—unfinished. Beginning “Oh hotel bed,” it appears here below the haunting “Love Sleeps in the Poet’s Chest.” Wikipedia tells us that Lorca was a Spanish poet, playwright and theatre director. Indeed, I remember a friend who once lived in Spain referring to him as a playwright. His plays were evidently still popular there long after his death. I was surprised: she did not seem to be aware of him as a poet, whereas I had thought poetry the sum total of his writing. Wikipedia also notes, in passing: 'Although García Lorca's drawings do not often receive attention, he was also a talented artist.' He was known as a talented musician, too, before focusing on writing. His friends included such luminaries as film-maker Luis Bunuel and artist Salvador Dali. He was encouraged by Dali, in 1928, to publicly exhibit his drawings. The Encyclopaedia Britannica tells us that,'A gifted draughtsman blessed with a startling visual imagination, Lorca produced hundreds of sketches in his lifetime.' Of even greater interest to us, the Britannica biography also remarks that he 'in a career that spanned just 19 years, resurrected and revitalized the most basic strains of Spanish poetry and theatre.... In the early 1930s Lorca helped inaugurate a second Golden Age of the Spanish theatre.' He was a poetic theorist and innovator, who postulated the concept of 'duende' (particularly as exhibited in flamenco dancing) as a kind of wild, instinctive, passionate form of inspiration. It includes sadness and darkness. Wikipedia calls it 'a Spanish term for a heightened state of emotion, expression and authenticity'. Britannica also tells us that Lorca 'was executed by a Nationalist firing squad in the first months of the Spanish Civil War.' Yes, he was killed at the age of 38, evidently for his socialism, in a Spain which was at that time becoming increasingly right-wing. There are theories that he may also have been singled out for his homosexuality, in the era of institutionalised and legally sanctioned homophobia. (Yet this supposed crime gave rise to the beautiful love poems I've shared with you today – thanks to Sarah Arvio and Knopf.) Sarah Arvio is a noted American poet, essayist and translator, and the recipient of a number of literary awards. Many books of Lorca's are available at Amazon, in English or Spanish (often both). Sarah Arvio's own books are also available at Amazon, including The Poet in Spain.
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remain the property of the copyright owners, where applicable (older poems may
be out of copyright).
“The darkness is really out there. It’s not something that’s in my
head, just. It’s in my work because it’s in the world.”— Margaret Atwood
Midweek
Motif ~ Darkness Is….
Darkness was; is; will be. Is it intrinsically bad? Or is it
something that lies in between good and evil? What color is it? Is it gray,
black or white?
Is it a part of life? Is darkness a necessity?
What is darkness? When does it come? Where does it live?
There can be endless questions regarding darkness.
What do you think darkness is?
In your poem today be dark J
Gacela Of The Dark Death
by Federico Garcia Lorca
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.
I don't want to hear again that the dead do not lose their blood,
that the putrid mouth goes on asking for water.
I don't want to learn of the tortures of the grass,
nor of the moon with a serpent's mouth
that labors before dawn.
I want to sleep awhile,
awhile, a minute, a century;
but all must know that I have not died;
that there is a stable of gold in my lips;
that I am the small friend of the West wing;
that I am the intense shadows of my tears.
Cover me at dawn with a veil,
because dawn will throw fistfuls of ants at me,
and wet with hard water my shoes
so that the pincers of the scorpion slide.
For I want to sleep the dream of the apples,
to learn a lament that will cleanse me to earth;
for I want to live with that dark child
who wanted to cut his heart on the high seas.
To A Dark Moses
by Lucille Clifton
you are
the one i am lit for. Come with your rod that twists and is a serpent. i am the bush. i am burning i am not consumed.
We Grow Accustomed To The Dark
by Emily
Dickinson
We grow accustomed to the Dark -
When light is put away -
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Goodbye -
A Moment - We uncertain step
For newness of the night -
Then - fit our Vision to the Dark -
And meet the Road - erect -
And so of larger - Darknesses -
Those Evenings of the Brain -
When not a Moon disclose a sign -
Or Star - come out - within -
The Bravest - grope a little -
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead -
But as they learn to see -
Either the Darkness alters -
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight -
And Life steps almost straight.
Dark Glasses
by Robert William Service
Sweet
maiden, why disguise The beauty of your eyes With glasses black? Although I'm well aware That you are more than fair, Allure you lack. For as I stare at you I ask if brown or blue Your optics are? But though I cannot see, I'm sure that each must be Bright as a star.
That may be green or grey, 'Tis very hard to say, Or violet; The lovelight in their glow Alas, I'll never know, To my regret. In some rhyme-book I've read, A lady bard has said, And deemed it true, Men will not bite the necks Of sweeties who wear specs,-- Young man, would you?
But though they balk romance, Columbus took a chance, And so would I; Even with orbs unseen I'd fain make you my queen And you en-sky. Alas I see you go, And I will never know Your pupils tint; So o'er a lonely drink I force myself to think: Damsel, you squint!
Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others
in the spirit of the community—
(Next week Susan’s
Midweek Motif will be ~ Zero Tolerance)
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