Themes: Primitivism vs Mechanization. Nature vs City. Science vs Emotion,"Magic" aka the Spirit. Wildness. Puritanism. Fluidity vs Structure. Death. Money. Reality vs Dreams (false dreams aka untruths).Lorca wrote on New York as a "savage" place doomed by mechanization, money, science, the loss of nature, wildness, fluidity, and the denial of roots and primitivism. For instance, from the Dance of Death: Between the sphinx and the bank vault, there is a taut threadthat pierces the heart of all poor children.The primitive impetus dances with the mechanical impetus,unaware, in their frenzy, of the original light.Because if the wheel forgets its formula,it will sing nude with herds of horses;and if a flame burns the frozen blueprints,the sky will have to flee before the tumult of windows.Lorca's struggle between the mechanical world and the primitive world is demonstrated in these lines with the consequences of "children pierced through the heart" and the retreat of nature "the sky will have to flee." These themes repeat through the book, but Lorca changes the perspective of the poet from a first timer to NY, to solitude in NY, to dealing with the crowds of NY, and finally his return home from NY. Poet in New York is a stylistic departure from Lorca's other poetry. It's more surreal. More images. More "out there." An excerpt from The King of Harlem demonstrates both the aforementioned themes and the surreal style of the collection:Look for the great central sun.Turn into a swarm of buzzing pineapple.The sun that slides through the forests,sure that a nymph will not be there.The sun that destroys numbers, and has never crossed a dream,the tattooed sun that descends the riverand bellows just ahead of the crocodiles.Within the passage, the sun (nature) destroys numbers (science) and "has never crossed a dream" (the sun is truth). The imagery of the "tattooed sun" that "slides" and "bellows just ahead of the crocodiles" and "turns into a swarm of buzzing pineapple" is surreal. The surreal experimentation of PNY makes for much deeper and interesting poetry. Lorca and surreal painter Salvador Dali were friends. Dali had urged Lorca to become more surreal and experimental. Lorca answered by writing PNY. Dali encouraged Lorca to find the reality of things by examining as abstract parts to themselves. For instance, the value of one hand of a clock unto itself, as opposed to its value pending on its function and relation to the whole clock. However, Lorca refused to go so far. In fact, he refuted that his poetry is surreal. He did not practice automatic writing or experiment with tapping the sub-conscious. Lorca claimed his poetry to be crafted and deliberate. However, Lorca did distinguish between poetry of "imagination" vs "inspiration":The imaginative poet is bound by the laws of 'human logic which is controlled by, and cannot break free of, reason ... the four points of the compass and the intermediate cause o things' ... the poetry of inspiration, which permits poet and reader to acknowledge mystery and to evade reality. In inspired poetry the traditional metaphor yields to the 'poetic event," an image which seems as inexplicable as a miracle, for it is devoid of any analogical meaning.Lorca's PNY is borderline surreal but not fully committal.I should also address the problem of interpretation. I started with the new Statman & Medina version but found it to be kluncky, not very musical. I know enough about Spanish to recognize that Lorca had nice tempo/flow and lots of rhyme no matter how slanted it might be. I became suspicious of the new translation even more when I noticed the translators kept using "a more contemporary style translation" in their pitch for the book and said 9/11 inspired their re-interest in Lorca's work. Connecting PNY to the 9/11 tragedy is a leap. Finally when i read that in one poem they chose to use "hole" instead of the more common translation of "void" or "empty" space in order to invoke more sexuality, I went searching for another translation. I liked the Simon & White much much more for its musicality, included letters and lectures by Lorca.
Devastating poems composed during the Andalusian bard’s 1929-30 stay in New York. This edition contains a brilliant introduction and unobtrusive commentaries, plus a lecture (which I read) and letters to his family (which I skipped). My favourite of the cycle is this spinechilling number from Part III, Streets and Dreams (with incorrect line breaks and my apologies to the poet): Sleepless City (Brooklyn Bridge Nocturne)Out in the sky, no one sleeps. No one, no one.No one sleeps.Lunar creatures sniff and circle the dwellings.Live iguanas will come to bite the men who don’t dream,and the brokenhearted fugitive will meet on street cornersan incredible crocodile resting beneath the tender protest of thestars.Out in the world, no one sleeps. No one, no one.No one sleeps.There is a corpse in the farthest graveyardcomplaining for three yearsbecause of an arid landscape in his knee;and a boy who was buried this morning cried so muchthey had to call the dogs to quiet him.Life is no dream. Watch out! Watch out! Watch out!We fall down stairs and eat the moist earth,or we climb to the snow’s edge with the choir of dead dahlias.But there is no oblivion, no dream:raw flesh. Kisses tie mouthsin a tangle of new veinsand those who are hurt will hurt without restand those who are frightened by death will carry it on theirshoulders.One dayhorses will live in the tavernsand furious antswill attack the yellow skies that take refuge in the eyes of cattle.Another daywe’ll witness the resurrection of dead butterflies,and still walking in a landscape of gray sponges and silent ships,we’ll see our ring shine and rose spill from our tongues.Watch out! Watch out! Watch out!Those still marked by claws and cloudburst,that boy who cries because he doesn’t know about the inventionof bridges,or that corpse that has nothing more than its head and one shoe—they all must be led to the wall where iguanas and serpents wait,where the bear’s teeth wait,where the mummified hand of a child waitsand the camel’s fur bristles with a violent blue chill.Out in the sky, no one sleeps. No one, no one.No one sleeps.But if someone closes his eyes,whip him, my children, whip him!Let there be a panorama of open eyesand bitter inflamed wounds.Out in the world, no one sleeps. No one. No one.I’ve said it before.No one sleeps.But at night, if someone has too much moss on his temples,open the trap doors so he can see in moonlightthe fake goblets, the venom, and the skull of the theaters.
What do You think about Poet In New York (1998)?
Toni cupi, di morte e solitudine, che nulla hanno a che fare con il Lorca vitale de Libro de Poemas. E' una New York grottesca, sordida e alienata. Le metafore e le sinestesie si intrecciano così vorticosamente da lasciare sempre meno spazio alla comprensione del lettore. Si sa, la poesia parla per archetipi e forse è proprio questo ciò che ci fa amarla: non doverla sottoporre al microscopio della ragione, eppure stavolta avrei preferito qualche verso meno criptico. Ode a Walt Whitman è commovente.
—Vale
لم أجد هنا نسخة الكتاب الذي بين يدي..النسخة الصادرة عن دار أزمنة ترجمة حسين مجيدعن دراسة لديريك هاريس..هنا لوركا عندما أتيحت له فرصة السفر لأمريكا غرض دخول الجامعة في نيويورك فكتب ديوانه الواضح من مسماه في حين قضائه تلك المدة مابين منتصف عام 1929 لأواخر عام 1930.. عندما زُكي في ذهابه لتعلم الانجليزية في الجامعةقال: داوها بالداءإلا أنه بعد ما يقارب الستة أشهر فقط لم يكمل دواءه "الداء"نهج لوركا الأسباني منهج السريالية التعبيرية فاتضحت في هذا الديوان، هو مذهب فني أدبي وفكري إنتهجه وأبدع فيه الفرنسيين منهج مرن ذو تعبيرات واقعية وبعض رموزها كائنات تعبيرية لم يُلفت لها مسبقاً لوركا لم يكن يحب أمريكا إلا بإثنين أطفالها والسود إذ يتضح ذلك في الديوان بشكل لافت لا يحتاج لتدقيق، يحاربها بالبِيض فيها بإقتصادها بسياساتها بتقييدها الحريات و احتكارها لمن لا يستحقها على حسب تعبيرها..الكتاب ذو جزئين الأول دراسة ونبذة عن لوركا ومبدأ السريالية التي لا تتضح مفاهيمها إلا بقراءة بعض الشروحات الصعبة في ديوانه الذي يتضمن حوالي 30 قصيدة مصنفة تحت إحداثيات معينة..لوركا المتنبئ بكيفية موته بإعدامه على تلال قريبة من غرناطة وعن جسده الذي بُحث عنه ولم يُرى بعد إعدامه !! وعرفت أنني قتلتوبحثوا عن جثتي في المقاهي والمدافن والكنائسفتحوا البراميل والخزائنسرقوا ثلاث جثثونزعوا أسنانها الذهبيةلكنهم لم يجدوني قط*فيديريكو غارثيا لوركا
—Roqaiah Al-Fareed
As afirst reading to these poems, lorca's experience of living in NewYork nearly about 9 months"between june1929&march 1930"changed thoroughly his attitudes and views towards people, life&no question poetry..symbolism, and the spontaneous overflow of the poet feelings and his impressions, not positive anyway, about the materialistic indulgence of such ahuge city, the barren life, absence òf soul in people's actions and behavior s, except black ones and children, the constant comparison between NEWYORK and his quiet, charming small town Granada, all of these being expressed in, asomehow, obscure metaphoric language, which won't be understood completely without having the same, or at least asimilar experience , that the poet undergone, as he himself clarified, and then some of the specialists in lorca'spoetry admitted...Any way, it was an interesting reading, however little ambiguous &boring sometimes, but lorca's world, by no means, deserves to be explored and getting the best, inspiring, meaningful, artistic values out of it...
—Eslammohammed
