Pablo Neruda or Federico Garcia Lorca????
 

Which of these poets do you prefer best?

I like Neruda, but I haven't heard of Federico Garcia Lorca. I just did a study on neruda in english class last term, but it wasn't too in-depth. All in all, he's a good poet

oh, you complete bastard, to want to make me choose between them! :D

i love both, and enormously, and for different reasons. neruda has a much greater range-- he wrote all kinds of poetry throughout his life. he also traslates better, a lot better, into other languages-- the beauty of garcia lorca's work is more closely dependent on the sounds and rhythms of the spanish language. neruda is, in a way, the 'bigger" poet, and a more popular poet because a good part of his work is very accessible. however, when it comes down to it, i prefer garcia lorca becaus he's dark, death-obsessed, wounded, and carries such a strange magic that you can't just define and say "oh, that...". however a lot of this will be lost in translation because, as i said, the poetry often happens in the music and not in the meaning of the words, in his work.

Please provide some examples, or links to them. Thanks.

???

:D

(seriously though?)

one of my favorite fgl poems:

Gacela 1

Gacela del amor imprevisto

Nadie comprendía el perfume
de la oscura magnolia de tu vientre.
Nadie sabía que martirizabas
un colibrí de amor entre los dientes.

Mil caballitos persas se dormían
en la plaza con luna de tu frente,
mientras que yo enlazaba cuatro noches
tu cintura, enemiga de la nieve.

Entre yeso y jazmines, tu mirada
era un pálido ramo de simientes.
Yo busqué, para darte, por mi pecho
las letras de marfil que dicen siempre,

siempre, siempre: jardín de mi agonía,
tu cuerpo fugitivo para siempre,
la sangre de tus venas en mi boca,
tu boca ya sin luz para mi muerte.

--

one of my favorite neruda poems-- an unusual choice

TANGO DEL VIUDO

OH Maligna, ya habrás hallado la carta, ya habrás llorado de furia,
y habrás insultado el recuerdo de mi madre
llamándola perra podrida y madre de perros,
ya habrás bebido sola, solitaria, el té del atardecer
mirando mis viejos zapatos vacíos para siempre
y ya no podrás recordar mis enfermedades, mis sueños nocturnos, mis comidas,
sin maldecirme en voz alta como si estuviera allí aún
quejándome del trópico de los coolíes corringhis,
de las venenosas fiebres que me hicieron tanto daño
y de los espantosos ingleses que odio todavía.

Maligna, la verdad, qué noche tan grande, qué tierra tan sola!
He llegado otra vez a los dormitorios solitarios,
a almorzar en los restaurantes comida fría, y otra vez
tiro al suelo los pantalones y las camisas,
no hay perchas en mi habitación, ni retratos de nadie en las paredes.
Cuánta sombra de la que hay en mi alma daría por recobrarte,
y qué amenazadores me parecen los nombres de los meses,
y la palabra invierno qué sonido de tambor lúgubre tiene.

Enterrado junto al cocotero hallarás más tarde
el cuchillo que escondí allí por temor de que me mataras,
y ahora repentinamente quisiera oler su acero de cocina
acostumbrado al peso de tu mano y al brillo de tu pie:
bajo la humedad de la tierra, entre las sordas raíces,
de los lenguajes humanos el pobre sólo sabría tu nombre,
y la espesa tierra no comprende tu nombre
hecho de impenetrables substancias divinas.

Así como me aflige pensar en el claro día de tus piernas
recostadas como detenidas y duras aguas solares,
y la golondrina que durmiendo y volando vive en tus ojos,
y el perro de furia que asilas en el corazón,
así también veo las muertes que están entre nosotros desde ahora,
y respiro en el aire la ceniza y lo destruido,
el largo, solitario espacio que me rodea para siempre.

Daría este viento del mar gigante por tu brusca respiración
oída en largas noches sin mezcla de olvido,
uniéndose a la atmósfera como el látigo a la piel del caballo.
Y por oírte orinar, en la oscuridad, en el fondo de la casa,
como vertiendo una miel delgada, trémula, argentina, obstinada,
cuántas veces entregaría este coro de sombras que poseo,
y el ruido de espadas inútiles que se oye en mi alma,
y la paloma de sangre que está solitaria en mi frente
llamando cosas desaparecidas, seres desaparecidos,
substancias extrañamente inseparables y perdidas.

Yes, but that could point me in the direction of any old crap. If I'm going to express thoughts on two poets whose work I've never seen before, I'd prefer to know that what I'm looking at is acknowledged to be good stuff.

i thought this said NELLY FURTARDO or FEDRERICO GARCIA LORCA??

oh i was just doing that... you want translated? let me see...

furrexample this:

"Heights of Macchu Picchu: I," Pablo Neruda

trans. by Ron Hogan [<-- who??]

From air to air, like an empty net,
I went wandering between the streets and the atmosphere, arriving and saying goodbye
leaving behind in autumn's advent the coin extended
from the leaves, and between Spring and the wheat,
that which the greatest love, as within a falling glove,
hands over to us like a large moon.
(Days of live brilliance in the storminess
of bodies: steel transformed
into the silence of acid:
nights unraveled to the last flour:
assualted stamens of the nuptial native land.)
Someone waiting for me among the violins
found a world like a sunken tower
digging its spiral deeper than all
the leaves the color of hoarse sulfur:
and deeper still, into geologic gold,
like a sword sheathed in meteors,
I pulnged my turbulent and tender hand
into the most genital terrestrial territory.
I leaned my head into the deepest waves,
I sank through the sulfuric peace,
and, like a blind man, returned to the jasmine
of the exhausted human springtime.


and this (by fgl)



Sonnet of the Sweet Complaint
Never let me lose the marvel
of your statue-like eyes, or the accent
the solitary rose of your breath
places on my cheek at night.
I am afraid of being, on this shore,
a branchless trunk, and what I most regret
is having no flower, pulp, or clay
for the worm of my despair.
If you are my hidden treasure,
if you are my cross, my dampened pain,
if I am a dog, and you alone my master,
never let me lose what I have gained,
and adorn the branches of your river
with leaves of my estranged Autumn.

Wow. It's not often that poetry moves me, but Sonnet of the Sweet Complaint did. Is all Federico Garcia Lorca's work that good?

(PS - Thanks for the examples and translations)

oh fgl is fucking fantastic; the thing is he was also a great playwright and he wrote his plays in verse, like classic spanish theatre, but for the 20th century of course-- some of his more brilliant stuff is in the plays actually-- yerma, the house of bernarda alba, blood wedding, love of don perlimplin with belisa in his garden, etc

bah, ese vargas llosa de mierda... :p

mejor lo hicieron los jaivas :D

I think Pablo Neruda is a better writer due to his wide range of poems he did.
However, I can't say Lorca isn't as great. He has this ability to transform the spanish language into a very beautiful thing.But Neruda moves me more than Lorca.

"I am familiar with the works of Pablo Neruda."

I just read Pablo Neruda as Paulo Nuttini in my head. Now I don't know what you guys think, but I am never going to let myself live that one down and deserve to be flogged, ridiculed and otherwise flagellated for that error. Neruda is great; Garcia Lorca less so.

so did you read them in original or translation?

do you mean that czech neruda? i know only him..

I like Lorca best. He has all of the Spanish poet traits, as has been pointed out, his themes revolve around the dark, death, things like that.
I like Neruda but I don't think he has Lorca's depth. Neruda is "wide" while Lorca is "deep".
Just my humble opinion.

Anyway, an interesting thing about Neruda our professor in Literature at the University quoted: "When I wrote what I wrote, only God and me knew what I meant. Now only God knows." I'm quoting by heart, not exact words.

Octavio Paz instead those 2, thinks James Blonde.

I've yet to go into Octavio Paz.

Adventure full of pleasures quotes James Blonde.

egh, octavio paz is full of shit except for sunstone (piedra del sol)
either neruda or garcia lorca are far far beyond paz's rethorical flourishes, silly theories, and accomodation politics.

Neruda wasn't into politics asks James Blonde?

Good Point. Unmentionable?

of course he was, he was a fucking stalinist for fucks sakes. his own shortcoming. but at least he stood for something.

garcia lorca was also a republican and that's why he got shot (also perhaps for being a flaming queen, which made the fascists, im sure, quite nervous).

paz's theory that poets just deal with myth & should remain uninvolved with history however is crap. and so was most of his poetry. he can eat shit (well he's dead anyway).

Your point well taken, admits James Blonde. Sometimes pure art is worth to read also.

I believe poetry should consists of history happening at the time the poetry is written.

James Blonde believes poetry should be written how the poet wants, there can't be any restrictions, it's up to readers whether to like it or not.

Point taken.

well, "pure art" is a bit of a fallacy, is my point-- a fallacy that paz himself constructed.

piedra del sol however IS a magnificent poem; the rest of his work however leaves me meh. piedra del sol can be found here in spanish: http://amediavoz.com/paz.htm#PIEDRA%20DE%20SOL
the bilingual edition is here:
http://www.amazon.com/Sunstone-Piedr.../dp/0811211959
i have that edition actually, and the translation is adequate.

a better mexican poet that few people know however is jose gorostiza, "muerte sin fin" (maybe translatable as "death without end" ) is fucking mindblowing. again i don't know how it would translate into other languages, those verses inspired in the baroque... but for those who read spanish, jump in & tremble... http://omega.ilce.edu.mx:3000/sites/...htm/sec_5.html

oh on this i should add-- paz himself wrote treatises/theories on poetics, hence he opened himself to criticism in this regard, especially when he denied other poets (via his theories) the freedom to write how they wished to write.

How about antipoetry by Nicanor Parra? I really dig his writting and his collages! a pure anarchist!

hot damn i love nicanor parra!

the only problem i have is that his schtick wears out eventually-- for me anyway-- kinda like, hm, punk rock, you know what i mean?

now i think you're chilean no?

then vicente huidobro is where it's at-- genius of the avant garde-- altazor = masterpiece. and his prose books etc-- mind blowing.

im looking for it online but no luck yet--
however, you poetaster friends (we're all poetasters here, ha ha), should all read it. potentially life-altering.