Coming up: Neruda’s ode to Lorca

Federico García Lorca (l.) and Pablo Neruda in conversation, ca. mid-1930s

Chilean poet and diplomat Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) was already widely known when he came to Spain in 1934 as a representative of Chile. Initially posted to Barcelona, Neruda soon moved to Madrid, where he joined the literary circle whose members came to be known as the Generation of ‘27. Though not regarded as a member of the movement whose most famous members are Federico García Lorca, Jorge Guillén, and Rafael Alberti, Neruda was closely associated with the group during his time in Spain.

His close friendship with Lorca — the two poets met in Buenos Aires the year before — lasted until Lorca’s assassination and Neruda’s departure from Spain. Their relationship underlies one of Neruda’s most well-known poems, “Ode to Federico García Lorca.”

Written before the 1936 assassination of Lorca, Neruda’s poem wrestles so passionately with Lorca’s ever-present literary themes of suffering and death that many readers assume the poem is a post-mortem tribute. But Neruda’s work is more a recognition of the many liminal spaces that Lorca occupied — among them the shore of “death’s river” and the social world where Lorca’s queerness had to remain closeted.

In our next episode, Anna and Katia take a close look at Neruda’s “Ode to Federico García Lorca” and the ways it illuminates Lorca’s character and work.