Photo of a cave in Granada where I saw a flamenco performance, with a large photo of Lorca
[My apologies for the temporary hiatus in these posts. No wi-fi that I could discover in all of Córdoba.]
With the assistance of the local librarian in Mojácar, I have found some poetry being written in Spain today. From what I can tell, Lorca still casts a long shadow over contemporary Spanish poetry, which may not be a bad thing at all. Luis García Montero, born in Granada in 1958, has written a three-part homage to Lorca entitled “To Federico, With Violets.” Here is my translation of the second part.
To Federico, With Violets
II
and I remember a sad breeze through the olive trees.
F. G. L.
After
the tired rush of the last trains
nothing returns. Only your face
over Broadway remains
and it is difficult, from so much solitude,
to close your eyes without doubting you exist.
Absurd
this fiery tongue that splits itself, indomitable, over our hearts,
many-shaped and wounded
that bursts and seems
the forced smile of a broken mask.
Alone
the city disguises itself in a chill
and its eyes, lined and blind,
score you
like teeth marks that forgot themselves in your shoulders.
Then
alcohol and blood denudes your lips
because night comes,
because death arrives on a folded arm
to leave you alone with your years.
Sad among the olive trees,
while Harlem leaves its windows ajar,
time is a breeze that already no one remembers.
Lorca's summer house in Granada, Huerta de San Vicente, the last place he lived before he was seized by the Civil Guard at a neighbor's house and killed
Here is a poem by another contemporary poet, José Manuel Caballero Bonald, from Gallego, I believe, whose first book appeared in 1952. I translated this poem from a volume called Love Poetry, published in Seville in 1999. In future posts I hope to be turning to women, still a minority among poets, who are currently writing poetry in Spain.
A Book, a Glass, Nothing
Every night I leave
my loneliness between books, open
the door to oracles
burn my soul with the fire
of the psalmist.
The contrary
desire for danger keeps me awake,
smashes the vigilant
thirst for living by my words.
Every night joined uselessly
the remains of the day, I distance myself
from the funereal time of indifference,
I consist of what I have been.
(A forgotten hand between the bed sheets
tears paper, burns up
the residue of sleep.)
Oh you who are possessed
by no one, why
so many vain pages, so many
vacuous days? Look
around you—what remains? We are
alone, all absence fits between love and its cracks. Here
my stubbornness is my happiness:
a book, a glass, nothing.