Collected Poems

by Federico García Lorca, Christopher Mauer

A revised edition of this major writer's complete poetical work"And I who was walkingwith the earth at my waist,saw two snowy eaglesand a naked girl.The one was the otherand the girl was neither."--from "Qasida of the Dark Doves"Federico García Lorca is the greatest poet of twentieth-century Spain and one of the world's most influential modernist writers. Christopher Maurer, a leading Lorca scholar and editor, has substantially revised FSG's earlier edition of the collected poems of this charismatic and complicated figure, who--as Maurer says in his illuminating Introduction--"spoke unforgettably of all that most interests the otherness of nature, the demons of personal identity and artistic creation, sex, childhood, and death."

Genres: Poetry, Spanish Literature, Spain, Classics, Literature, Fiction, 20th Century

248 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

Born in Fuente Vaqueros, Granada, Spain, June 5 1898; died near Granada, August 19 1936, García Lorca is one of Spain's most deeply appreciated and highly revered poets and dramatists. His murder by the Nationalists at the start of the Spanish civil war brought sudden international fame, accompanied by an excess of political rhetoric which led a later generation to question his merits; after the inevitable slump, his reputation has recovered (largely with a shift in interest to the less obvious works). He must now be bracketed with Machado as one of the two greatest poets Spain has produced in the 20th century, and he is certainly Spain's greatest dramatist since the Golden Age.

Reviews

[Eric Byrd · Rating 5 out of 5]

I lugged this beast across Cuba 11 years ago. I'm curious to go back the Hennepin Country Library and see if that copy still has all the sand and stains it accumulated (though if it wasn't checked in the year after I retuned it, it was probably de-accessioned).

'Guadalquivir, high tower
and wind in the orange groves.'

It was very strange to be traveling in a foreign country, overwhelmed with impressions, and to be in the midst of bookish raptures at the same time. You open your book, and look down from a new world in another new world. Cuba was called 'the Andalusia of the New World,' and reading Lorca in the Cuban countryside was fitting, and disorienting.

[Steven Godin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A specter trailing restless silver,
the night wind with its sighing,
reopened my old wound in its gray hands,
moved on, and left me there desiring.

Wound of love, source to sustain my life
with blood always new and light unblemished.
Cleft in which the tongueless Philomel
will find her nest, her grove, her grief replenished.

Ah, so sweet a sound inside my head!
I shall lie down beside the simple flower
on which your soulless beauty soars.

Then the meandering water will turn yellow
as my blood keeps flowing through the marshy,
moist and fragrant growth along the shores.

[Rinda Elwakil · Rating 4 out of 5]

فلننفجر غضبًا أمام لوركا..

عيناك واشيتان، لوركا..مخيفتان .





to be reviewed.

[Xristina Karvouni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mi beso era una granada,
Profunda y abierta;
Tu boca era rosa
De papel.

Best way to practice Spanish!

[trestitia ⵊⵊⵊ deamorski]

bu kitabın öyle acı hikayesi var ki geçen seneki fuardan üf. fuarda çalışıyorum akşama ekip geldi geziyoruz. kitabı buldum cüzdanda para yok, 15 tl dedi, dedim abi geliyorum. gitmedim, gidemedim, yanımdakilerden de para isteyemedim. bir saat sonra durduğum stantta kendimden 3 yaş küçük patronumdan yevmiyemi erken aldım. gittim. KİTAP YOK. kim aldıysa abv şu anda nadirkitapta 50tl fln kitap.
nys pdfi var.
kendim basarım asfasdfasd :((:(:(:(:(:((

[Edita · Rating 5 out of 5]

South Wind.
Dark and burning,
Soaked with orange blossoms,
You come over my flesh,
Bringing me seed
Of brilliant gazes.

You turn the moon red,
Make captive poplars moan,
But you’ve come
too late!
I’ve already scrolled up the night
Of my tale on the shelf!

Without any wind
-Look sharp!-
Turn, heart.
Turn, my heart.

Northern air,
While bear of the wind!
You come over my flesh
Shivering with boreal
auroras,
with your cape of phantom
captains,
laughing aloud at Dante.
Oh polisher of the stars!
But you’ve come
too late.
My case is musty
And I’ve lost my key.

Without any wind
-Look sharp!-
Turn, heart.
Turn, my heart.

Gnome breezes and winds
From nowhere.
Mosquitoes of the rose
With pyramid petals.
Trade winds weaned
among rough trees,
flutes in the storm,
begone!
My memory is chained;
captive the bird
that sketches the evening
in song.

Things that go away never return-
Everybody knows that.
And in the bright crowd of the winds there’s no use complaining!
Am I right, poplar, teacher of the breeze?
There’s no use complaining!

Without any wind
-Look sharp!-
Turn, heart.
Turn, my heart.

[Lynette · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this book will be on my "currently reading" shelf forever - similar to the way some people keep a Bible on their nightstand... I love picking this up - and having the Spain of the 1920s & 30s wash over me... "Dry Land, quiet land of immense nights ... (Wind in the olive grove, wind in the sierra.)....." sigh...

[Karim Hikal · Rating 5 out of 5]

دائما ما تفقد الترجمة جزء من روح الشاعر وربما ظهر ذلك فى بعض القصائد
ولكن مع ذلك اقيم الديوان بـ 5 نجوم
ليتني استطيع قراءة هذا الديوان بلغته الاصلية دون ترجمة ,,
لوركا أنت الاروع على الاطلاق
______________________

آه أيتها المرأة الجبارة
المصنوعةمن الأبنوس والناردين
لكِ نفس أبيض كــ اليانسون
أنت فينوس فى عباءة مانيلا
تفوح بنبيذ مالقا وموسيقاها

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first met Lorca under a reading lamp, the kind with a shade slightly tilted like a thoughtful head. The book was hardcover — deep green, like moss on an old stone. I remember the pages felt thick, almost too rich for my fingers, like they were meant to be turned by ghosts. What unfolded inside was not poetry in the neat, mannered sense — it was possession. Lorca didn’t write. He summoned.

His Collected Poems are a constellation of knives and lullabies. In Gypsy Ballads, every verse gallops with Andalusian rhythms, but the shadows run faster. The Poet in New York section left me breathless — not with awe, but grief. The concrete, the capitalism, the loneliness… it felt eerily familiar, like the dissonance of arriving in a new city that doesn’t have space for your soul.

And yet, amid all the darkness — the aching homosexual longing, the silent screams of the oppressed — Lorca’s voice sings. Always. His duende, that Spanish idea of deep, tragic soulfulness, became a word I didn’t know I needed.

Years later, when a student of mine scribbled a heartbroken poem during recess, I handed him my copy of Lorca. He didn’t understand a word. But he felt it. And that’s the magic.

[Danilo Scardamaglio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lorca riesce a fondere come forse nessuno ha mai saputo modernità e tradizione. Ricerca per l'immagine preziosa e complessa, una generosa vena surrealista, l'influenza dei grandi simbolisti, si legano perfettamente alle metriche tradizionali, dal sonetto alle odi fino alle metriche flamenche, alle radici andaluse, alla purezza del mito. Romancero gitano a mio parere è l'opera in cui meglio si contempla questa commistione: in un'Andalusia mitica, primitiva, sotto il raggio di una luna argentina, i gitani diventano i conservatori del sogno e della musica, custodi braccati dalle barbarie franchiste e moderne. Un capolavoro. Davvero struggente è anche il tenero e sommesso lamento in onore dell'amico Ignacio Sánchez Mejías, l'invincibile e leggendario torero trafitto e ucciso dall'eterno nemico; come suggestivo e malinconico nel ritmo cadenzato delle metriche tradizionali del canto profondo, un canto secondo Lorca antico quanto i popoli indoeuropei, é il Poema del cante jondo.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lorca, oh Lorca. Sweet playful Lorca. Erotic Lorca. Lorca of Love. Lorca of love's lost and found. Oh yes Lorca!

Lorca of visual puns, words and sensual senses. Lorca of a Spanish towns and countrysides. Lorca of music, de la guitarra y voces dolorosos.

Lorca of Dali and Whitman and New York City and The Tamarit Divan. Canciones y sonetos y odas y suites y poemas.

A las cinco de la tarde. Eran las cinco en punto de la tarde. Señor Ignacio Sánchez Mejías. It was five in the afternoon R.M.

Este libro está muy magnífico.

[Anima · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Silence
“Listen, my child, to the silence.
An undulating silence,
a silence
that turns valleys and echoes slippery,
that bends foreheads
toward the ground.”

And Then
“The labyrinths
that time creates
vanish.
(Only the desert
remains.)

The heart,
fountain of desire,
vanishes.
(Only the desert
remains.)

The illusion of dawn
and kisses
vanish.
Only the desert
remains.
Undulating
desert “

[Jeffrey (Akiva) Savett · Rating 5 out of 5]

When you highlight or underline every word, phrase, sentence and stanza on a page, you might as well just put the mind that wants to hold them poems in the hand to rest.

Lorca is an incantatory force of nature.

I'm happy that I've overcome my squeamishness about reading poetry in translation. It's not that I was wrong--what I've just finished reading are NOT the poems Lorca actually wrote. All translations are poems the translators wrote inspired by the original poems. The poems themselves have slippery enough language as it is! But alas, these echoes of Lorca are enough for me. This wonderful new edition has the Spanish originals on the left side of the page and the English on the right. My Spanish isn't good enough to get the texture of the originals; I can do nothing more than look over once in a while and either do a bleak word to word translation with my rusty memory of high school Spanish (not fun), OR, just SAY the Spanish poem out loud after I've read the English version. I found this incredibly rewarding. So much of Lorca is found in sound, and this way, I could get little peaks at his voice.

This version also begins with an EXCELLENT introduction to Lorca's socio-poetic heritage, interests, and legacy. I found myself flipping back to parts of the intro when making my way through the poems because Christopher Maurer provides a fine survey/analysis of some of Lorca's most common imagery and techniques: the moon, water, green etc...

But enough. To try and "figure" these poems is to miss the point. To do so is to "order the loves that soon become photographs" Lorca sighs in "Poet In New York."

These poems have changed my life. They have changed the way I'm writing poetry. They have changed the way I wake up. They have increased my Post-It flag consumption beyond all decorum. Lorca breaks the chains of our mirrors and our language. Even with all that said, I'm glad I didn't read him until this time in my life. I wasn't ready. I'm still not really. But he was the right poet at the exact right time for me as he was for the world.

If you're ready, buy this book and love it and let it love you. If, like me, you would be coming to Lorca having only read a few scraps of anthologized poetry, I suggest beginning with the Introduction and then diving into The Tamarit Divan. I'd follow that, in order, with Poet In New York, Songs, Gypsy Ballads, then Suites. After that, just pick a page a start reading.

I'm off to my bookshelf to meet Neruda or Paz.

[Chase · Rating 5 out of 5]

What remains to be said of Lorca? What insights could I possibly add? I don’t know. But I do know one thing. For my money, Federico García Lorca is the greatest poet who’s ever lived. It’s as simple as that. For those of you who follow my rather obnoxious Instagram account, you’ll probably have seen me post various pieces from this gargantuan tomb of a collection. From December of last year to last night, seven long months I have lived in this man’s shadow. One must savor Lorca, one must only read him in the waning hours or the dead of the night…to do otherwise would be unthinkable. I tried only to read his poems when I felt utterly-beaten or tinged with that unspeakable feeling of melancholy, Duende. It’s only from that mental reference point can the true power of Lorca’s words be unlocked (or as true of a power a reader in translation can get).

His themes revolve (almost neurotically) around sex, death, love, childhood, and memory. For many poets these themes are well traveled ground, but Lorca is able, through some kind of incantatory magick, to render them afresh. To reopen those old wounds if you will…with the simplest and most unadorned choice of words and phrasing. It’s no wonder his work is and was worshipped by host of song writers the world over like Dylan, Townes Van-Zandt, and most notably Leonard Cohen, who famously said that Lorca was the poet who unlocked his own voice as a songwriter. Lorca for me, made me understand that technical and cerebral ability is useless and has no place in poetry (or art) if it not is backed up in equal measure with a genuine display emotion. This is the pathway to the soul, and all others are duplicitous and fraudulent leading to mediocrity and moral bankruptcy. I have nothing more to add. Lorca should be experienced by all sentient beings. Maybe then we might achieve something akin to transcendence and true beauty.

5/5

[Peter Crofts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, a massive volume with a great introduction. I don't know what it is with me but I'm always going for the collected works of any poet I'm interested in. I don't know if that is always a good idea as it can be quite overwhelming to encounter a volume such as the size of this one which exceeds a thousand pages. That being said it also features the original language on the facing page which I always like to have when I hit thorny areas, it's also great fun to occasionally try and translate a poem into English for yourself. Lorca is considered one of the great modern poets, that in itself shows that the term modern is so broad as to mean almost anything. I suppose in his attempt to find an authentic vitality rather than nostalgia, sentimentality or a long past expiry date romanticism he is definetly experimental. Yet there is no doubt that the blood that runs through his work is deep red and of high temperature. Lorca was a poet who wanted his work to feel like it had grown out of the place which was so much of what he was, in this way he's somewhat like Frost. Although they "feel" very different for both the complexity of their thought is ingeniously hidden behind what at first would appear to be rather prosaic sentiments. I absolutely love this book, I wish I had known of Lorca many years ago when I traveled through southern Spain. It would be enjoyable to read them within the atmosphere that inspired them. There is a Selected Poems of Lorca from FSG that may appeal to some who want to give him a try but are a bit wary of the heft of this volume. My only complaint is that, as often seems to be the case, FSG has bound it very cheaply. You bend the spine at your own risk as the book tends to come apart. Considering this publisher is one of the most expensive out there I find it highly frustrating that their books are often very cheaply made.

[Sean A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

just about as awesome as i remember when i read it is a younger, teenage poet. full of dark mystery, the moon, the half moon, spikenard, adultry, horses and so forth. the love poems are longing and enigmatic and a lot of it contains ample scenery of days that are lost to me. roving countrysides and mysterious horses and horseman. yet if you read this whole thing or make yr way thru lorca's collection, watchout to when he comes to new york! the anxieties of modern life are there in full effect all of a sudden in the 'poet in new york' section.
beautiful and inspiring.

[Lo Wayward Tomes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't give a star rating because it would be unfair. I just went through and read the poems that stuck out to me the most and I was so lost. I know they're supposed to have meanings behind them or tell a story but I honestly didn't know what the point is for most of them. Poetry and me are not friends. There were 2 that I liked Some Souls on page 53 and My Souls Shadows on page 41.

[Kathe Koja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Federico Garcia Lorca's voice is unique, is universal, flows like spring water, like blood, like air in a closed room: he will never not be alive. An essential collection from a transcendent poet.

[Mehmet]

Çok sevdiğim atlının türküsü şiirini görünce duygulandım.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

The biographical and literary introduction that begins this book is worth reading in itself to familiarize readers with Garcia Lorca's life and art.

The poems themselves, provided in the original Spanish on the left-hand page and in English on the right-hand page, are both simple and rich, pastoral and passionate. They are like eating a sensually ripe, warmed fruit that is sometimes sweet, sometimes tangy.

[Taka · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid Collection—

I was only interested in Lorca's poetry just before and after his masterful Poet in New York, and this collection confirmed for me that Poet in New York is indeed my favorite work by him, and he's not quite the same afterwards, and though there are flashes of similar amazing verbal acrobatics and alchemy in his earlier works (The Gypsy Ballades), they are not as heightened, extreme, or mind-blowing than those he performs in that masterpiece of his.

[Bahman Bahman · Rating 3 out of 5]

پنجره مهتابی ام را بسته‌ ام/ چرا که هوای شنیدن گریه ندارم/ از پشت دیوارهای خاکستری اما/ جز گریه چیزی به گوش نمی‌ رسد/ آنجا فرشتگانی آواز می‌ خوانند/ و سگانی می‌ لایند/ هزار ویلون در کف دستم جای می‌ گیرد/ گریه اما سگی تنومند/ گریه اما فرشته ای است عظیم/ گریه ویولنی است بی انتها/ اشک ها باد را خاموش می‌ کند/ و جز گریه هیچ چیز دیگری/ به گوش نمی‌ رسد...

[Todd · Rating 5 out of 5]

In an interview during the Spanish Civil war Lorca was asked if he was revolutionary. To which he responded, "All poets are revolutionaries.". Great works from a great artist.

[Gladys · Rating 5 out of 5]

My heart breaks and my soul mourns every time I read his poetry and think about how young he was when he was murdered.

[Julio Pérez]

Siempre está en el sofá junto a El libro de los abrazos invitándome a tomar pausa... siempre estarán en currently reading.

[irene · Rating 4 out of 5]

dios es q le amo es el mejor

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I first discovered the poetry of Federico García Lorca, I was immediately taken in by its beautiful language use. I was particularly struck by "Romance sonámbulo," which is included in the collection known as Primer Romancero Gitano (the Gypsy Ballads), perhaps Lorca's most famous collection. It remains my favorite poem of all time. While I had read some of the poems included in this book previously, most were new to me and gave me a renewed appreciation of Lorca's artistic brilliance and linguistic mastery.

This book compiles all of the known poems by Lorca for the first time and includes many poems not previously published. The collection is impressive, as is the quality of the translations. A dozen translators contributed to this work; their knowledge of Lorca and expertise with linguistic nuance were evident throughout. The bilingual edition allows readers to enjoy the original Spanish poems next to the English translations and compare the two versions. I enjoyed seeing how the works were translated and the word choices of the translators. Equally enjoyable are the Preface and extensive notes and bibliography at the end, which provide additional context for the poems and the times in which they were written.

I decided to use this book to check off two different categories for the reading challenges that I'm working on this year. For the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge, I'm using this for "Read a collection of poetry in translation on a theme other than love." Just about any of the fourteen collections contained in this edition would work perfectly for that. For the Popsugar Reading Challenge, I used this for the advanced prompt "A book that's more than 800 pages." Weighing in at 1,056 pages, that seemed like a win to me. Knowing it would take me awhile to finish such an 800+ page book, I wanted to make sure that I picked one I would want to spend a lot of time with; this definitely checked the box in that regard.

[Garth Mailman · Rating 4 out of 5]

When writing in Spanish, a language where most nouns end in either an 'a' or an 'o' the greater challenge would be the attempt to avoid rhyme. In English his translators make no attempt to duplicate his rhyme scheme. I look forward to hearing this poetry read in its original Spanish. In English one gets only a sense of the poet's thought. The poems are deeply personal and reveal a rather depressive personality of one who is self-absorbed and obsessive. One begins to understand why he would not keep silent for his own good when he returned to Spain. Like so many dissidents before and after him he might have survived in exile but separation from his native soil would have been intolerable. Some men seem to be born to be martyrs.

There are notes supplied in an end appendix but since the poems are not numbered and there are only rough page references following them is not easy. I claim no expertize in Spanish but in rendering the title La balada del agua del mar rather than Seawater Ballad or Salt Water Ballad I’d have said Sea Chanty. These may be Lorca’s Collected Verse but what they most reveal is a rather undisciplined cluttered personality leaving many versions of the same poems with no definitive indications of his preference or even completed versions of most poems. An editor’s nightmare it would seem.

Lorca was born to wealth and privilege but was not ashamed to associate with the local peasants in the countryside surrounding Granada though beyond writing about it no mention is made of his efforts to improve their lot.

Everything about this book is monumental including the sixty-four page introduction. In paperback the binding cannot survive the reading of it.

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 4 out of 5]

A behemoth of a collection, physically and lyrically, this includes pretty much everything of worth of Lorca you could want. Poetry, like children's literature, has no business being reviewed, so I'll leave it at this: if you love Lorca, you'll probably pee a little when you get this; if you love poetry and have no idea who Lorca is (simple version: gay socialist-poet shot by his own countrymen), you probably won't go wrong blind-buying it.
A nice introduction and copious notes, of course, but who wants to read those?

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

read these poems with the idea that some of them would become puppet shows! they are beautiful in their imagery alone, but thinking in terms of literal illustration made me focus on them in a way that i might not other wise have.
tom! i want this book back!!!