Lorca’s mantic poet in New York

In a clear echo of the Passion Lorca refers in Poeta en Nueva York to his ‘voz de mi abierto costado’ (498) [voice of my open side], an allusion indicative of the speaking role he adopts in this volume as a poet–seer whose visionary gift – like that of Jeremiah, ‘the weeping prophet’ – is grounded in suffering. From the opening line, ‘Asesinado por el cielo’ (473) [Murdered by heaven], the dominant theme in this Lorca’s most avant-garde collection is suffering. Moreover, it is a suffering derived from, conditioned by and even acted out in a conspicuously religious context, as a number of titles indicate: ‘Iglesia abandonada’ [‘Abandoned Church’], ‘Navidad en el Hudson’ [‘Christmas on the Hudson’], ‘Nacimiento de Cristo’ [‘Birth of Christ’], ‘Grito hacia Roma’ [‘Shout towards Rome’] and ‘Crucifixión’ [‘Crucifixion’]. No less striking is the modulated voice and pitch that the poet consistently adopts to project his suffering, for this is based on a tradition that reaches back as far as poetry itself to a time when, as Blake indicates above, the roles of poet and prophet were virtually indistinguishable. ‘Así hablaba yo’ (499) [Thus spoke I], says Lorca in oracular vein as he emerges at the end of one poem from an agonized trance-like state; ‘Yo estaba en la terraza …’ (486) [There was I on the terrace …], he proclaims in another, ubicating himself as witness to the horror of New York; ‘¡oh salvaje Norteamérica!’ (486) [oh barbarous North America!], he admonishes the erring twentieth-century nation much as Isaiah chastized the house of Judah, ‘yo denuncio a toda la gente’ (516) [I denounce all the people]; ‘ya las cobras silbarán … ya la Bolsa será una pirámide de musgo’ (487) [now shall the cobras hiss … now shall the Stock Exchange be a pyramid of moss], he foretells the godhead’s retribution; ‘aleluya, aleluya’ (492), he interjects ironically; ‘No busquéis … Buscad … Aguardad’ (481–2) [Don’t look … Look … Wait], he directs the lost citizens of New York in the familiar imperative.