Poet in Spain

November 15, 2017

Interest in Lorca, one of the best-known and admired 20th-century Spanish poets, shows no slacking since his murder 80 years ago. Arvio capriciously chose and translated over 150 poems she liked best among those representing Lorca's Spanish roots, including later works such as the Dark Love Sonnets, Lorca's homosexually themed poetry not made public until the 1980s. Six poems from that collection appear here for the first time in English. Arvio reorders 60 poems from Lorca's four earliest collections into one section but keeps those from Cante jondo onward intact. In keeping with her thematic parameters, she excludes Poet in New York altogether. A new translation of Lorca's mostly verse rural tragedy, Blood Wedding, rounds out the anthology. Arvio, a poet in her own right, conveys the rhythmic spirit of Lorca's verse even as she idiosyncratically eschews punctuation. The indexes list titles in English and Spanish but not first lines. VERDICT As an introduction to most of the major works of Lorca, this bilingual retrospective fits the bill. However, for a more complete and better annotated version, see Collected Poems (2002) or its abbreviated Selected Verse (2004), still the current standard. Blood Wedding is more than adequately served elsewhere.--Lawrence Olszewski, North Central State Coll., Mansfield, OH

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November 1, 2017
Widely celebrated as the most important Spanish poet of the twentieth century, Lorca composed passionate, sophisticated verse, rich with now legendary intelligence and the bursting heart of Andalusia. In the 38 short years before his murder at the hands of Fascist forces during the first years of Spain's Civil War, Lorca produced numerous editions of poetry, and Arvio offers fresh translations of the most renowned works, including the modernist folk songs of Gypsy Ballads, sorrowful selections from Poem of the Cante Jondo, and the scandalous Sonnets of Dark Love, written for his gay lover. Arvio brings Lorca's slow stylistic shift into full view, from early bright fragments and abbreviated lines to extended syllabics, culminating in the play Blood Wedding, an astounding lyrical tragedy. This omnibus volume benefits greatly from the in-depth introduction, an extensive bibliography, and several poems never before published in English. This hefty bilingual edition will earn praise from Lorca aficionados, and takes its rightful place among other recently released translations of Spanish-language literary greats, like All the Odes (2012), by Pablo Neruda, and Poems of Octavio Paz (2012).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)