By Federico García Lorca

The Tamarit Poems

Michael Smith introduces English language readers to what many consider to be the finest work of Spain’s great 20th poet.

Description

Michael Smith introduces English language readers to what many consider to be the finest work of Spain’s great 20th poet.

In Federico García 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 Lorca scholars as among his finest work.

“Michael Hartnett, another Irish poet, translated Lorca’s poetry with aplomb—specifically Gypsy Ballads—but to my knowledge, no non-Hispanic poet, Irish or otherwise, has immersed himself so completely in the culture and poetry of Spain and Latin-America as has Michael Smith. So his understanding of Lorca, a sympathy in the literal sense, does not come out of the blue.” Michael Smith has caught what delights him in Lorca: his tone. This unsettling, entirely quotable book deserves to find many readers.” — Philip Casey, The Irish Times

“Michael Smith handles the challenge [of translating The Tamarit Poems] with consummate skill and fidelity.” — David Butler, Translation Ireland

ISBN 978 1 904556 76 3
140 x 216 mm, 115 pp
2007

Product Detail

    No detail information

About The Author

Author

Federico García Lorca was one of Spain's great artists of the 20th century and has had a huge influence on poets writing today, both in his native language and in many others. A poet, playwright and theatre director, he was part of the Generation of '27 group, which helped to introduce the influence of surrealism, symbolism and other movements to Spanish writing and culture. At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, on 19 August 1936, Lorca was murdered by Franquist rebel soliders and his books publicly burned. His remains have never been located. The late Irish poet Michael Smith, who translated extensively from the Spanish, here translates Federico García Lorca's Divan Del Tamarit / The Tamarit Poems, a work which expresses and celebrates Federico García Lorca's abiding interest in Arab-Andalusian culture and is testament to the intensity, sometime strangeness and beauty of his vision. See Lorca at Wikipedia