| Beyond the Film: King of Harlem |
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| Written by Victor Marzowicz-Velasquez | |||
| Sunday, 30 November 2008 | |||
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Last week we made the error of presenting Victor's editorial as a two part series, however as Victor stated, "I don't really know how many installments there will be in the Poet in New York series yet, but I plan on covering the book very thoroughly, so it
For more on Lorca, don't forget to visit Victor's blog. - - - Federico Garcia Lorca had traveled to New York City ostensibly to study English at Columbia University’s summer session, but he was never much of a scholar. He arrived not speaking a single word of English and returned home a year later able to say “Times Square” and “ham and eggs.” Once again, there’s very little evidence to suggest he ever stepped foot in a classroom, but of course, Lorca was more interested in broadening his horizons and gaining life experience, rather than academic prowess.
Lorca was quite taken by Larsen and wrote to his parents extolling her beauty, grace and eloquence. She would be his guide through the Jazz-fueled Harlem Renaissance, where hundreds of creative young black artists, musicians and writers had flocked to the city and sought to use their art as a means of overcoming the severe bigotry of the era and gain a voice in American culture at large. Lorca spent much of his time in New York frequenting the bars, parties and musical theatres of Harlem, and he was deeply touched by the plight of this oppressed minority, which paralleled his own as a gay man in a deeply homophobic culture.
Using the long, free-flowing lines and prophetic voice borrowed from Whitman that suffuse so much of Poet in New York, "The King of Harlem" depicts a people robbed of their own culture and human dignity and forced into a life of subservience:
Ay, Harlem! Ay, Harlem! Ay, Harlem!
There is no anguish like that of your oppressed reds,
or your blood shuddering with rage inside the dark eclipse,
or your garnet violence, deaf and dumb in the shadows,
or your great king held prisoner in a janitor’s uniform.
Like pressure inside a volcano, this rage continues to build until the King of Harlem “beats the monkeys on their asses,” and in so doing, issues the call to bloody revolution against their oppressors and the dehumanizing machinery of the city itself:
Blood flows, and will flow
on rooftops everywhere,
and burn the blonde women’s chlorophyll,
to groan at the foot of the beds before the sinks’ insomnia,
and burst into an aurora of tobacco and yellow haze.
Not much is known about Lorca’s relationship with Hughes. Lorca’s time in New York and Cuba is marked by frequent disappearances where his friends would lose track of him for days or weeks at a time and upon his return thought it better not to ask where he’d been. As a deeply closeted man himself, Hughes’ personal life is just as sketchy. We do know they met and became friends through Larsen, and the two would set sail for Cuba together in March 1930. Following Lorca’s death, Hughes would be among the first to translate Lorca’s poetry and poems into English. It does seem the three writers influenced one another’s work – the oppressed Andalusian women of Lorca’s later plays bear a keen resemblance to Larsen’s southern black women, and stylistic and structural similarities have been noted between some of Hughes’ and Lorca’s later poems.
Comments (8)
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written by Victor Marzowicz-Velasquez, November 30, 2008
Oh, and about "the boat" -- it's significant to note that Lorca and Hughes didn't just coincidentally happen to board the same boat bound for Havana from New York. Lorca was, as usual, convinced of his immediately impending death, and wanted to spend as little time on the high seas as possible, so took a train from NYC to Miami then hopped a boat for a few hours trip across to Havana. Hughes left NYC on the same Florida-bound train, then transferred to the same Cuba-bound boat. Which is to say, although nobody either knew were aware of it at the time, the two were travelling together. Lorca's "disappearances" continued in Cuba, but there are so many rumors of completely "wild and crazy" sexual escapades still circulating about Lorca's adventures on the island, he could have been up to just about anything on his little tropical "spring break."
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written by Victor Marzowicz-Velasquez, December 01, 2008
First off, I got the title wrong -- talking off the top of my head. "Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias."
For illustration, here's the part of the poem I'm talking about (no time to translate, but you'll get the gist of the rhythm): A las cinco de la tarde Eran las cinco en punto de la tarde. Un niño trajo la blanca sábana a las cinco de la tarde. Una espuerta de cal ya prevenida a las cinco de la tarde. Lo demás era muerte y sólo muerte a las cinco de la tarde. El viento se llevó los algodones a las cinco de la tarde. Y el óxido sembró cristal y níquel a las cinco de la tarde Ya luchan la paloma y el leopardo a las cinco de la tarde. Y un muslo con un asta desolada a las cinco de la tarde. Comenzaron los sones de bordón a las cinco de la tarde. Las campanas de arsénico y el humo a las cinco de la tarde. En las esquinas grupos de silencio a las cinco de la tarde. ¡Y el toro solo corazón arriba! a las cinco de la tarde. Cuando el sudor de nieve fue llegando a las cinco de la tarde, cuando la plaza se cubrió de yodo a las cinco de la tarde, la muerte puso huevos en la herida a las cinco de la tarde. A las cinco de la tarde. A las cinco en punto de la tarde. Un ataúd con ruedas es la cama a las cinco de la tarde. Huesos y flautas suenan en su oído a las cinco de la tarde. El toro ya mugía por su frente a las cinco do la tarde. El cuarto se irisaba de agonía a las cinco de la tarde. A lo lejos ya viene la gangrena a las cinco de la tarde. Trompa de lirio por las verdes ingles a las cinco de la tarde. Las heridas quemaban como soles a las cinco de la tarde, y el gentío rompía las ventanas a las cinco de la tarde. A las cinco de la tarde. ¡Ay, qué terribles cinco de la tarde! ¡Eran las cinco en todos los relojes! ¡Eran las cinco en sombra de la tarde!
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written by Victor Marzowicz-Velasquez, December 01, 2008
And here's the corresponding Hughes poem (bold and italic face in original):
August 19th... What flag will fly for me When I die? What flag of red and white and blue, Half-mast against the sky? I'm not the President, Nor the Honorable So-and-So. But only one of the Scottsboro boys Doomed "by law" to go. August 19th is the date. Put it in your book. The date that I must keep with death. Would you like to come and look? You will see a black boy die. Would you like to come and cry? Maybe tears politely shed Help the dead. Or better still, they may help you -- For if you let the "law" kill me, Are you free? August 19th is the date. Clarence Norris is my name. The sentence, against me, Against you, the same. August 19th is the date. Thunder in the sky. In Alabama A young black boy will die. August 19th is the date. Judges in high places Still preserve their dignity And dispose of cases. August 19th is the date. Rich people sit and fan And sip cool drinks and do no work -- Yet they rule the land. August 19th is the date. The electric chair. Swimmers on cool beaches With their bodies bare. August 19th is the date. European tours. Summer camps for the kids. If they are yours. Me, I never had no kids. I never had no wife. August 19th is the date. To take my life. August 19th is the date. Will your church bells ring? August 19th is the date. Will the choir sing? August 19th is the date. Will the ball games stop? August 19th is the date. Will the jazz bands play? August 19th is the date. When I go away. August 19th is the date. Thunder in the sky. August 19th is the date. Scottsboro Boy must die. August 19th is the date. Judges in high places -- August 19th is the date. Still dispose of cases. August 19th is the date. Rich people sit and fan. August 19th is the date. Who shall rule the land? August 19th is the date. Swimmers on cool beaches. August 19th is the date. World! stop all the leeches That such your life away and mine. World! stop all the leeches That use their power to strangle hope, That make of the law a lyncher's rope, That drop their bombs on China and Spain, That have no pity for Hunger or pain, That always, forever, close the door Against the likes of me, the poor, AUGUST 19th IS THE DATE. What flag will fly for me? AUGUST 19th IS THE DATE. So deep my grave will be. AUGUST 19th IS THE DATE. I'm not the honorable So-and-So. AUGUST 19th IS THE DATE. Just a poor boy doomed to go AUGUST 19th IS THE DATE. AUGUST 19th IS THE DATE. Can you make death wait? AUGUST 19th IS THE DATE. Will you let me die? AUGUST 19th IS THE DATE. Can we make death wait? AUGUST 19th IS THE DATE. Will you let me die? AUGUST 19th IS THE DATE. AUGUST 19th IS THE DATE. AUGUST 19th... AUGUST 19th... AUGUST 19th... AUGUST 19th... AUGUST 19th...
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written by patti, December 01, 2008
Wow Victor, you have really out done yourself again. Interesting insight on Huges influence on Lorca.
Thanks!
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written by Victor Marzowicz-Velasquez, December 02, 2008
Thanks. This particular article is the first of several that feel really special to me, because we're getting into the part of the story that I find really cool. And somehow I always have bad timing, with my best articles coming out on the days when there's something big and exciting going down! Hahaha! Well, hopefully the next several will fare better in competing for attention.
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written by Camellia, December 05, 2008
I'm really loving this site, and this post is a perfect example of why. I really appreciate the thought that goes into these posts and the obvious love for the topics. This one was especially moving, Victor, and the Hughes poem was just beautiful (I am deeply regretting not keeping up with my Spanish and can't read Lorca's). Thanks for sharing your knowledge!
... written by Victor Marzowicz-Velasquez, December 05, 2008
Thanks so much. I'm really loving this and learning so much. It's very exciting.
That Lorca poem is one of his most famous, and English translations of it are easy to find online -- just be careful to look for the real title and not the one I guessed at! Ha! Write comment
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Much is made of how Lorca was inspired "by the Harlem Renaissance" in the radical repositioning of himself as a gay man and a "cultural warrior" vis-a-vis his revolutionary theatre, but looking over the bare, enumerated facts of the life of the remarkable Mr. Hughes, I think the influence was much more direct than that. Hughes was a dyed-in-the-wool revolutionary specifically looking to change the world via radical theatre and poetry, and reading the accomplishments of his life as a minority artist-activist is like reading a list of everything you'd expect Lorca to have done, had he lived. Which is to say, the two men meet, and Lorca's trajectory suddenly changes to match Hughes'.
On the other hand, there's a remarkable "coincidence" among Hughes' poems. He wrote a poem about the upcoming scheduled execution of one of the Scottsboro Boys (look it up if you don't know the story -- no time to explain here), a poem that repeats "August 19th is the date" every other line ("like a heartbeat" he explains in his notes) and ends repeating just that one line over and over. Thisis in exact parallelto Lorca's repetion of the line "A las cinco de la tarde" ("At five in the afternoon") in his famous "Lament for Sancho Mejias," in a section that likwise ends on the repetition of that single line.
The boy was to be unjustly hanged 19 August 1937.
Lorca was unjustly executed 19 August 1936.
Coincidence? No. A secret homage to a fallen friend. Hughes would travel to Spain after Lorca's death to cover the war for several black newspapers, and he wrote several heartwrenching poems about the fascist atrocities he witnessed there. It was during the war that he translated Lorca's works into English.