The Tamarit Poems

by Federico García Lorca

In Lorca's Tamarit poems, the dominant theme is that of life/love and death. He returns to Andalusian material, specifically to his native city of Granada, for images and atmosphere, among other things. Traditional ballad rhythms can also be heard, yet experimentation in rhythm and images and other techniques is also evident. The Tamarit Poems is considered by many Lorcan scholars as among his finest work. Translator Michael Smith also includes 36 of his translations of poems from Arabic Andalusia by way of background.

Genres: Poetry

124 pages, Paperback

Published May 1, 2007

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

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful poems from a master - perfect for summer nights. The poems of Federico García Lorca have always made me think of 'smoke hieroglyphics' - ephemeral and hard to interpret - and always moving past us. It is this movement that centers our existence; the transition of the here and now that is always fading - even as we try to embrace it before it becomes memory.

[Edita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Leave me to yearn for dark planets
But do not show me your young waist!
*
Don't take away your memory.
Leave it alone in my chest.

A tremor of white cherry
in punishing January.
[...]
But leave your memory,
leave it alone in my chest.
*
Dusk with elephantine tread
is pushing the branches and tree-trunks.

[Mark Valentine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Garcia Lorca's language triangulates tropes and concepts and me into a confluence of hope, passion, and awe. The tamarind groves of Granada provide the setting and the "gacela" and "casida" poetic forms that Garcia Lorca used--forms inspired from Arabic patterns.

Passionate language? "Tu vientre es una lucha de raices,/tus labios son un alba sin contorno, bajo las rosas tibias de la cama/los muetos gimen esperando turno." (Your belly is a combat of roots,/your lips a dawn without contour./Beneath the bed's tepid roses/the dead groan, waiting their turn. --"IV. Casida of the Recumbent Woman")

I see Dylan Thomas and Pablo Neruda and Barry Lopez and Margaret Atwood in these poems. I see a universe in the orbit of an electron. I see the night sky in the her dark eyes.

I also see immense, imaginative freedom.

[Katlyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The poems were mystical, sensual and the metaphors vivid-- especially those relating the body to parts of the earth/trees. The rhyming in Spanish rolled without overbearing the text. I didn't quite get all of it but enjoyed the images. The translation could've been better.

[Veronica Coffey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I burned in your flesh not knowing it was yours
A moon choking in ivy
The scorpion sun bites at my temples
Leave my to yearn for dark planets but do not show me your dark waist
A crumb of cloud on land
The dead wear wings of moss
Love, enemy of mine, chew on your bitter root
Don’t take away your memory, leave it alone in my chest
A fountain spurting from His dreams assuage the hunger of seaweed

I want to go down to the well
I want to die my death in gusts
I want to fill my heart with moss
That I may see the one wounded by water

[Laurie Byro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting, this is about his Grenada which leads me back to Antonio Machado

"The Crime was in Granada" which is heartbreaking. I may not be the biggest Lorca Fan, but everyone should have a passing look at some of his exquisite lines such as " I long to sleep the sleep of apples."
gacela of dark death, which is a ghazal (origins arabic) and I believe Granada "his Granada" is highly Islamic in buildings and food.

I gave his 4 stars but Lorca lovers would give it 5.

[Lillyana · Rating 2 out of 5]

kinda sucks compared to some of his other work imo

[جابر طاحون · Rating 4 out of 5]

أن أراك عارية
هو أن أذكر الأرض الملساء
الخالية من الخيول
الأرض الخالية من الأسل
صيغة نقية
مقفلة عن المستقبل
بحدود فضية


أن أراك عارية
هو أن أفهم قلق المطر
الذي يبحث عن الجذع الواهي
أو حمي البحر ذي الوجه المهول
الذي لا يلاقي نور خده .



إن الدم يحدد العزف في المضاجع
و يأتي بسيفه البتار
و لكنك لا تدرين أين يختفي
قلب الضفدع أو شجرة البنفسج


إن بطنك لهي صراع الجذور
و شفتك فجر بلا هالات
و تحت ورود مضجعك الفاترة
يرتجف الموتي
انتظارًا لدورهم .

[Sara (onourshelves) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this collection of poems, my favorites were:
-Casida del Llanto
-Casida de la Mujer Tendida
-Casida de la Rosa
-Casida de la Muchacha Dorada

I'm not positive I was completely convinced by the translation--full disclosure, I only kinda know Spanish so its definitely not like I could do better, but I felt like the lyricalness and emotion kind of got lost in a stilted translation.

[Jared Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

La una era la otra
y las dos eran ninguna.