Poetry News

What is and is not Garcia Lorca

By Travis Nichols

The family of poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca says they will not stop authorities from opening the poet’s grave, despite previous protests.
Garcia Lorca is believed to have been buried in a common grave near Granada, along with two bullfighters and a school teacher who were part of his company in the Spanish Civil War. Relatives of the school teacher, Diascoro Galindo, shot for not believing in God, want his body exhumed so it can be given a proper burial.
Laura Garcia Lorca, the poet’s niece, told El Pais: “Even if we don’t want it to be done, we respect the wishes of the other parties involved.”
Right-wing rebels aligned with Franco’s army shot and killed Lorca in 1936, when the poet was only 38. The soldiers accused him of having “done more damage with his pen than others had with their guns,” and, according to Ian Gibson’s biography, spit on his body while calling its former inhabitant a “red queer.”
After Franco’s forces took over Spain in 1939, the dictator banned Lorca’s work for more than ten years, despite of (and perhaps contributing to) its massive popularity both in Spain and around the world.
The AP reports, “The request is part of a surging nationwide movement to give proper burial to the thousands of people known to have been killed by supporters of late dictator Gen. Francisco Franco and buried in mass graves.”
No one is quite sure if the gravesite actually holds the remains of Garcia Lorca, with some scholars claiming another site a few hundred yards away. The hillside reportedly holds the remains of thousands. If Locra is found, his niece told reporters “he could be taken to New York . . . Madrid . . . or Huerta de San Vicente.”

2008-09-18

Posted in Group Blog, Poetry News on Thursday, September 18th, 2008 by Travis Nichols.