A Heap of Broken Images: Lorca's "Poeta en Nueva York" and Neruda's "Residencia en la

Tierra"
Author(s): Robert M. Gleaves
Source: Confluencia, Vol. 13, No. 1 (FALL 1997), pp. 26-36
Published by: University of Northern Colorado
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27922569
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A Heap of Broken Images:
Lorca's Poeta en Nueva York and Neruda's
Residencia en la Tierra

Robert M. Gleaves
University of North Carolina at Charlotte

In general, Spain's Federico Garc?a Lorca (1898-1936) and Chile's Pablo Neruda (1904
1973) differ enormously from each other as lyric poets. These lyricists, arguably the tw
greatest Spanish-language poets of this century, admired each other greatly, but their
cultural and geographical roots are remote from each other, as is the internal music of most
of their poems. Chile's rainy and cold southern region around Temuco is worlds apart fro
the hot south of Spain, Lorca's childhood home. The Andalusian colors, musical rhythms,
and gypsy themes of a young Lorca's Poema del cante jondo (written in 1921) and
Romancero gitano (1928) contrast sharply with the mild eroticism and sentimentalism o
the youthful Neruda's Veinte poemas de amor y una canci?n desesperada (1924). But Lorca'
1929 trip to New York City and Neruda's 1927-33 sojourn in Burma, Ceylon, India, Java,
and Singapore led the two poets to compose two books which are remarkably similar to
each other, especially in the use of poetic language.
Lorca and Neruda first met in October 1933 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Neruda
moved to Spain in the Spring of 1934 to serve as Chilean consul, first in Barcelona and
then in Madrid, where Lorca was living. From that time until Lorca's death in 1936 the
two young poets were the closest of friends. The details of this special friendship are already
documented (for example, see my 1980 study entitled "Neruda and Lorca: A Meeting o
Poetic Minds"), and it is well known that the Spanish Civil War and the murder of Lorc
in August 1936 had a profound impact on Neruda's life and poetry. The Chilean poet
addresses Lorca ("Federico, te acuerdas. . .") in "Explico algunas cosas," from Tercer
Residencia (1947), then addresses his readers thus: "Preguntar?is por qu? su poes?a / no no
habla del sue?o, de las hojas, / de los grandes volcanes de su pa?s natal?" He concludes the
poem by reciting the following answer three times: "Venid a ver la sangre por las calles!"
Neruda also reveals in his Memoirs that on July 19, 1936, he and Lorca were to attend a
wrestling match together in Madrid: "Federico falt? a la cita. Ya iba camino de su muerte.

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Ya nunca m?s nos vimos. ... Y de ese modo la guerra de Espa?a, que cambi? mi poes?a,
comenz? para m? con la desaparici?n de un poeta" (CV166).
More than likely Neruda knew some of Lorcas works by the time they met each
other, and Lorca almost certainly had read some of Nerudas poems, for the Spanish poet
Rafael Alberti circulated an unpublished version of Residencia en la Tierra (I) among
friends in Madrid as early as 1930. Alberti writes that "Supe que Neruda era c?nsul en Java,
donde viv?a muy solo, escribiendo cartas desesperadas, distanciado del mundo y de su
propia lengua. Pase? el libro por todo Madrid. No hubo tertulia literaria que no lo
conociera" (294). Also, between 1934 and 1936 the two poets enjoyed reading each others
poems; Neruda writes that "A m? me seduc?a el gran poder metaf?rico de Garc?a Lorca y
me interesaba todo cuanto escrib?a. Por su parte, ?l me ped?a a veces que le leyera mis
?ltimos poemas y, a media lectura, me interrump?a a voces: 'No sigas, no sigas, que me
influencias!'" (CK 167). Despite such protestations, there is little evidence that the two
poets actually exercised influence on each other s poetry. Yet the language of Lorcas Poeta
en Nueva York (hereafter referred to as PNY), most of which was written in 1929 and 1930,
coincides in many ways with that of Nerudas first two cycles of Residencia en U Tierra
(hereafter referred to as RT), which include poems written between 1925 and 1935.
Because the two poets composed most of the poems in these books well before they met
in 1933, why is there so much similarity between the two collections in tone and imagery?
There are several possible explanations.
First, Lorca and Neruda wrote most of the poems in question while they were living
in alien environments: Lorca in New York City and Neruda in the aforementioned Asian
countries. They found new poetic voice as they sought to express in poetry their feelings
of alienation from the worlds in which they were forced to live. Lorca clearly suffered from
culture shock in New York, the first city outside of Spain in which he spent more than a
few days. Gustavo Correa says that this is the main reason PNY differs from his other
books: "Trasladado el poeta a un ambiente dominado casi exclusivamente por la
civilizaci?n mec?nica, se halla de pronto privado de su espont?nea y natural comunicaci?n
con el mundo afirmativo de la naturaleza c?smica, y su mundo interior sufre una ca?da que
produce un derrumbamiento moment?neo de todos sus valores. Este es sin duda el
significado de este libro" (164). Angel del R?o, who spent many hours with Lorca in New
York and knew him well during those agonizing months, writes that UPNY, en vez de
parecer un ejercicio caprichoso y exc?ntrico en un reino ajeno al poeta, cobra significado
como reacci?n previsible ante el choque con una realidad diametralmente opuesta a la suya
propia. La Ciudad se transforma en el s?mbolo poderoso de este universal fracaso" (12).
Lorca himself admits to feeling oppressed by life in New York: "Horrible. Nadie puede
darse idea de la soledad que siente all? un espa?ol, y m?s todav?a un hombre del Sur. Porque
si te caes?por ejemplo?, ser?s atropellado, y si resbalas al agua arrojar?n sobre ti los
papeles de sus meriendas" (1675).

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 As for Neruda, Marjorie Agosin writes that "While for other Latin American poets
such as Octavio Paz, the Orient was a site of reconciliation and encounter with the interior
equilibrium represented by Oriental philosophies, for Neruda the opposite phenomenon
occurred. The Far East became for him a place of alienation and solitude. A spiritual
malaise took hold of his being, and his poetry changed radically. His language, previously
characterized by its sculpted precision and graphic clarity, became hermetic, in order to
transmit his visceral intuition of a disintegrating world that he was doomed to traverse
alone. The language and style of this new phase gives birth to the book Residence on Earth,
which represents one of the poetic landmarks of Spanish-American letters" (5). Neruda
himself, in reflecting back on RT, states that "No creo . . . que mi poes?a de entonces haya
reflejado otra cosa que la soledad de un forastero transplantado a un mundo violento y
extra?o" (CV 116-117). In an excerpt from a series of revealing letters written to his friend
Hector Eandi, the young Chilean poet links his feelings of loneliness with his poetic
output: "A veces por largo tiempo estoy as? tan vac?o, sin poder expresar nada ni verificar
nada en mi interior, y una violenta disposici?n po?tica que no deja de existir en m?. . . . No
le hablo de duda o de pensamientos desorientados, no, sino de una aspiraci?n que no se
satisface, de una conciencia exasperada. Mis libros son ese hacinamiento de ansiedades sin
salida" (Aguirre 33).
Therefore, we can generalize that the language of both books reflects the cultural
alienation that each poet was feeling while living abroad. However, their experience
abroad does not explain the bitterness of all of the poems in these collections, for some
of their poems of alienation predate their trips; for example, Neruda wrote "D?bil del
alba" between 1925 and 1927, while still living in Santiago, according to Volodia
Teitelboim (139).
Secondly, avant-garde movements of the era clearly had some impact on the two
lyricists' use of poetic language. Andr? Breton and the French Surrealists exercised an
enormous influence on Western poets during the 1920s and 1930s. Also, Latin America's
greatest Vanguard poet, Vicente Huidobro, was Neruda's compatriot, and one of Lorcas
closest friends between 1923 and 1928 was the famous Surrealist painter Salvador Dal?.
Both poets were familiar with the Surrealists' uninhibited use of non-analogic poetic
imagery, and prior to beginning work on TWYand i?2"both cultivated poems which were
"surrealistic" in that they were "emoci?n pura descarnada" and "desligadas del control
l?gico," to use Lorcas own words. "Pero ?ojo!, ?ojo!, ?ojo!," Lorca adds in a 1928 letter to
his friend Sebasti?n Gasch, "con una tremenda l?gica po?tica. No es surrealismo, ?ojo!, la
conciencia m?s clara los ilumina" (1654). As Betty Jean Craige says, Lorcas New York
poetry contains "irrational, illogical, surrealistic (but not surrealist) images" (45). What
Lorca and many other poets rejected was the Surrealists' promotion of automatic writing.
Dylan Thomas spoke for a generation of anti-Surrealists when he wrote that "I do not
mind from where the images of a poem are dragged up ... , but, before they reach paper,
they must go through all the rational processes of the intellect. The Surrealists, on the other

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hand, put their words down together on paper exactly as they emerge from chaos; they do
not shape these words or put them in order; to them, chaos is the shape and order. This
seems to me to be exceedingly presumptuous; the Surrealists imagine that whatever they
dredge from their subconscious selves and put down in paint or in words must, essentially,
be of some interest or value. I deny this" (190-91). Yes, many of the images produced by
Lorca in /WFare obscure, irrational, and highly abstract, but, as Derek Harris suggests,
Lorcas mental state at the time may have contributed more toward his creation of images
than any influence he may have felt from Surrealism:

The use of free association and the apparent irrationality of images is in Lorca
the product of the state of hypersensitivity and quasihallucinatory vision. . . .
Carlos Edmundo de Ory has specifically declared that Lorca saw the city [of
New York] in a state of genuine hallucination. This distorted, dislocated vision
creates images that are the product of mechanisms outside rational control, but
such images are subject to an alternative control, the "tremenda l?gica po?tica."
Lorca exploits the surrealist freedom from moral, aesthetic or rational
constraint, but only as a means of production for his imagery. He does not seek
to establish the condition of surreality where conscious and subconscious
experience combine. (14)

Much of Nerudas imagery in RT is also surrealistic, but he was no more of a

Surrealist than Lorca. Juan Cano Ballesta observes that in the poetic manifestos published
in Caballo Verde para U Poes?a (edited in Spain by Neruda), "no se invoca nunca el
Surrealismo, a pesar de su proximidad con ?l y su orientaci?n hacia las esferas instintivas y
on?ricas." He adds that "Tambi?n resulta curioso que Miguel Hern?ndez escriba un ensayo
sobre la RTde Neruda sin hacer la m?s leve alusi?n a la escuela de Breton. No es nada
extra?o, ya que el mismo Neruda hablaba a?os m?s tarde del surrealismo como de un
peque?o clan perverso, una peque?a secta de destructores de la cultura, del sentimiento,
del sexo y de la acci?n. Tales palabras resultan llamativas en un poeta que se inspir?
poderosamente en las t?cnicas surrealistas" (132).
Finally, we may wish to seek common sources of inspiration as an explanation for the
similarities between the two books. Both poets admired Luis de G?ngora, Francisco de
Quevedo, Lautr?amont, Walt Whitman, and T. S. Eliot (though Lorca had to read
Whitman and Eliot in Spanish translation), and the tone of both books certainly suggests
that the Spaniard and the Chilean were familiar with Eliot s "The Wasteland" and perhaps
with his earlier work. Furthermore, during the period that Neruda was composing poems
for the second cycle of RThe was probably familiar with many of Lorcas New York poems,
even though the book did not appear until 1940. But it is dangerous to speak of direct
influence of one poet on another, and it is ludicrous to suggest that Lorca and Neruda were
influenced in exactly the same ways by a given poet.

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 Whatever hypotheses we may wish to suggest regarding the parallels between PNY
and the first two books of RT, the fact is that there are numerous points of contact between
the two collections, especially in the use of poetic language. Both poets vent their anguish
via the use of negative images relating to suffering and death, the emptiness of existence,
and the disintegration of the universe. Let us examine some examples of coincidence
between the two books in the use of poetic language.
THE LANGUAGE OF SUFFERING AND DEATH. The first word of the opening poem of
PNYis asesinado, a word which suggests violent death. The two poets feel totally incapable
of reversing the decaying process of the universe. All they can do in the face of so much
death is to let their hair grow. Lorca begins "Vuelta de paseo" thus: "Asesinado por el cielo,
/ entre las formas que van hacia la sierpe, / y las formas que buscan el cristal, / dejar? crecer
mis cabellos." Neruda writes in "Oda con un lamento" that "Hay mucha muerte, muchos
acontecimientos funerarios / en mis desamparadas pasiones y desolados besos, / hay el agua
que cae en mi cabeza, / mientras crece mi pelo." Both passages may echo Eliot s "The
Wasteland," in which the poet resolves to "rush out as I am, and walk the street / With my
hair down, so" (41).
The most commonly used symbols in the two collections are at least indirectly
associated with death or decay. When Lorca and Neruda write about decay, their specific
reference is usually the city, which represents a modern, mechanized, dehumanized
universe. Lorcas most pessimistic and negative poems are those which deal directly with
life in New York City; also, as Manuel Dur?n points out, "Neruda's most atrociously
negative poems in Residencias always refer to the city" (187). One way in which the two
poets convey their horror at deterioriation in the city is via the use of colors, specifically
yellow and black. In most instances yellow suggests decay resulting from human tampering
with the environment. In "Ciudad sin sue?o" the sky is obviously yellow because of air
pollution; Lorca, in his most apocalyptic tone, writes that "Un d?a / los caballos vivir?n en
las tabernas / y las hormigas furiosas / atacar?n los cielos amarillos que se refugian en los
ojos de las vacas." Neruda speaks of "un agrio cielo de metal mojado, / y un amarillo r?o
de sonrisas" ("Desespediente") and of "cenicientos caballos y perros amarillos" ("Oda con
un lamento"). More importantly, though, he uses the colors yellow and black in
connection with the dove, as we shall soon see.
Both authors show a predilection for inversion of traditional symbols, as in "No hay
olvido (Sonata)," in which Neruda first evokes the positive symbols of violets and swallows:
"He aqu? violetas, golondrinas, / todo cuanto nos gusta y aparece / en las dulces tarjetas de
larga cola / por donde se pasean el tiempo y la dulzura." Then he negates these symbols
thus: "Pero no penetremos m?s all? de esos dientes, / No mordamos las c?scaras que el
silencio acumula, / porque no s? qu? contestar: / hay tantos muertos. ..."
Symbol inversion is especially evident in the two poets' treatment of birds. Lorcas
ruise?or enajenado ("Tu infancia en Menton") and Neruda's golondrinas muertas ("Alberto
Rojas Jim?nez viene volando") are strange characterizations of two birds which poets

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usually revere for their singing and flying prowess, respectively. But it is the dove (la
paloma) which receives the most attention in the two books under consideration,
appearing fourteen times in PNY (probably in the form of the common pigeon most of
the time) and seventeen times in RT. Traditionally, the dove is a symbol of peace or of some
other positive force, but Lorca and Neruda consistently portray this small bird as a victim
of negative forces at work in the world. For both poets this bird is an innocent victim of
the Industrial Revolution. To return to our discussion of colors, the dove is yellowish in
Neruda's "No hay olvido (Sonata)": "No son recuerdos los que se han cruzado / ni es la
paloma amarillenta que duerme en el olvido." Then it is black in "Un d?a sobresale": A lo
sonoro el alma rueda / cayendo desde sue?os, / rodeada a?n por sus palomas negras, /
todav?a forrada por sus trapos de ausencia." In "La aurora" Lorca uses similar imagery in
summoning the black dove to symbolize New York City's polluted air: "La aurora de Nueva
York tiene / cuatro columnas de cieno / y un hurac?n de negras palomas / que chapotean
las aguas podridas."
By extension, the dove becomes a symbol of death in both books. For example, Lorca
writes in "New York - Oficina y denuncia" that "Todos los d?as se matan en New York /
cuatro millones de patos, / cinco millones de cerdos, / dos mil palomas para el gusto de los
agonizantes." He also speaks of peque?as caUveras de paloma, and writes that "La media
paloma gem?a / derramando una sangre que no era la suya" ("Cementerio jud?o"). Neruda
also invokes the dove in the context of death, using such terms as paloma de sangre, una
paloma muerta, and vuestras muertas palomas neutrales.
In the face of so much death the poets suffer enormously, either via empathy with
the humans and animals which populate their poems or via admissions of personal pain.
Words such as doler, sufrir, and quejarse abound in both books, but two words
predominate: llorar (which appears sixteen times in a twenty-seven in RT) and
llanto (which Lorca uses six times and Neruda nineteen). Lorca concentrates on the
suffering of New York's inhabitants, using the imperfect tense to talk about the plight of
the Blacks (e.g., "lloraban los negros"), the Chinese, the Jews, a camel (in New York?),
and at least four children, who seem to suffer more than anyone else in PNY. Only once
does Lorca use llorar in reference to himself: "Quiero llorar porque me da la gana"
("Poema doble del Lado Eden"), while Neruda refers to himself seven times. Significantly,
however, one of his most striking passages involving the word llorar refers to Lorca: "Ante
el r?o de la muerte lloras / abandonadamente, heridamente, / lloras llorando, con los ojos
llenos de l?grimas, de l?grimas, de l?grimas" ("Oda a Federico Garc?a Lorca"). Here
Neruda links human suffering with death, as he does in "Enfermedades en mi casa,"
which places suffering in a more general context as the poet uses sufrir and llanto in
context of noche and muerte:

en ese instante en que el d?a se cae con las plumas deshechas,

no hay sino llanto, nada m?s que llanto,

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 porque s?lo sufrir, solamente sufrir,
y nada m?s que llanto. . . .
y hay un planeta de terribles dientes
envenenando el agua en que caen los ni?os,
cuando es de noche, y no hay sino la muerte,
solamente la muerte, y nada m?s que el llanto.

THE LANGUAGE OF EMPTINESS. Lorca and Neruda often converge in their

evocation of symbols which evoke the emptiness of existence. For example, both evoke
empty suits, perhaps in indirect hommage to T. S. Eliot. Ian Gibson writes that "The
symbol of the empty suits [in Lorca] is reminiscent of Eliot s 'The Hollow Men?and
perhaps not by coincidence. Both Le?n Felipe and Angel Flores admired Eliot, and Flores
brought out in 1930 an excellent Spanish translation of 'The Waste Land' which he
showed to Lorca, who was deeply moved by the poem" (258). Correa points out that in
PNY "El concepto d? vestido constituye . . . uno de los s?mbolos negativos, cuyo valor
exacto es el de expresar la inexistencia de las personas, la ausencia total del perfil concreto
del ser. ... El concepto de traje queda asociado al concepto de muerte" (174). In "El rey
de Harlem" Lorca refers to "un gent?o de trajes sin cabeza," and in "Panorama ciego de
Nueva York" he writes that "Un traje abandonado pesa tanto en los hombros / que muchas
veces el cielo los agrupa en ?speras manadas." Neruda also speaks of "amargas
circunstancias e interminables trajes" ("Desespediente") and of "los viejos trajes mordidos"
("Vuelve el oto?o"). However, it is in "Solo la muerte" that the Chilean poet is most
effective in using the negative preposition to evoke the emptiness of existence. In this poem
he evokes un zapato sin pie and un traje sin hombre, but he does not limit himself to empty
clothing as he conjures up four similes among several other images of absence to describe
the feeling of death in our bones:

Hay cad?veres,
hay pies de pegajosa losa fr?a,
hay la muerte en los huesos,
como un sonido puro,
como un ladrido sin perro, . . .
A lo sonoro llega la muerte
como un zapato sin pie,
como un traje sin hombre,
llega a golpear con un anillo
sin piedras y sin dedo,
llega a gritar sin boca, sin lengua, sin garganta.

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 Lorca and Neruda make frequent use of the adjective vac?o. Neruda uses another
clothing metaphor in the expression zapatos vac?os, but both poets use vac?o in other
contexts. Lorca writes of los ojos vac?os de I los p?jaros, las nubes vac?as, Us mujeres vac?as, Us
piedras sin jugo y los insectos vac?os, and twice evokes a cieU vac?o. Lorca also uses the term
deshabitado as a synonym for vac?o in los pisos deshabitados, los edificios deshabitados, and Us
calles deshabitadas. Neruda evokes Us flores vac?as and el mediod?a vac?o, and he focuses
more subtly on the emptiness of a day in the following passage from "Alianza (Sonata)":
"De miradas polvorientas ca?das al suelo / o de hojas sin sonido y sepult?ndose. / De
metales sin luz, con el vac?o, / con la ausencia del d?a muerto de golpe." While not using
the word vac?o, Nerudas meaning is quite clear in his evocation of U ausencia del d?a.
The poets' preoccupation with emptiness also manifests itself via repetition of the
word hay which appears thirty-four times in /WFand seventy-six times in RT. The title of
Nerudas "No hay olvido (Sonata)" probably derives from the following passage in Lorcas
"Ciudad sin sue?o," written in July 1929: "Nos caemos por las escaleras para comer la
tierra h?meda / o subimos al filo de la nieve con el coro de las dalias muertas. / Pero no hay
olvido ni sue?o: / carne viva." Furthermore, Nerudas evocation of teeth in the
aforementioned poem may echo Lorcas use of the same motif in "Panorama ciego de
Nueva York." Lorca writes that "No hay dolor en la voz. S?lo existen los dientes, / pero
dientes que callar?n aislados por el raso negro. / No hay dolor en la voz. Aqu? s?lo existe la
Tierra." Those things which exist {los dientes, U Tierra) are just as negative as that which
does not exist {dolor), an attitude which Neruda shares in the following passage:

Pero no penetremos m?s all? de esos dientes,

No mordamos las c?scaras que el silencio acumula,
porque no s? qu? contestar:
hay tantos muertos,
y tantos malecones que el sol rojo part?a,
y tantas cabezas que golpean los buques,
y tantas manos que han encerrado besos,
y tantas cosas que quiero olvidar.

THE LANGUAGE OF A DISINTEGRATING UNIVERSE. Perhaps the predominant

image in both collections is that of a deteriorating universe. W. B. Yeats proclaims in "The
Second Coming" that "Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear
the falconer. / Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the
world" (184). The Spanish critic Amado Alonso dedicates several pages of his Poes?a y estilo
de Pablo Neruda to analysis of this element in the Chileans poetry. The following
comments on Neruda could apply almost equally to the Lorca of PNY:

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 No hay p?gina en RT donde falte esta terrible visi?n de lo que se deshace. . . .
Todos sus versos est?n llenos de im?genes de deformaci?n, desposesi?n y
destrucci?n, con gran frecuencia de estructura on?rica, im?genes en las que
unos objetos se deforman y desintegran con procesos s?lo existentes en
otros. ... Es la visi?n alucinada de la destrucci?n, de la desintegraci?n y de la
forma perdida, la visi?n omnilateral que se expresa como en amontonado
relampagueo recosiendo sobre cada cosa que se deforma y desintegra otras
deformaciones y desintegraciones. (21)

Images of a disintegrating universe abound in both books, but perhaps none better than
Nerudas evocation of the river with its self-destructive current in "No hay olvido
(Sonata)": "Debo de hablar del suelo que oscurecen las piedras, / del r?o que durando se
destruye: / no s? sino las cosas que los p?jaros pierden, / el mar dejado atr?s, o mi hermana
llorando." In this passage Neruda depicts a world which destroys itself by its very act of
existing, but he seldom speaks in abstractions: he proceeds from the general to the
specific, personalizing his observation with a reference to the crying of his sister. While
Lorca does not always point back to his own life after making general statements, he often
personalizes those statements by mentioning specific individuals, as in "New York?
Oficina y denuncia": "Hay un mundo de r?os quebrados y distancias inasibles / en la patita
de ese gato quebrada por un autom?vil, / y yo oigo el canto de la lombriz / en el coraz?n
de muchas ni?as."
The reference to r?os quebrados in the above passage provides us with another point
of contact between the two poets and another method employed by both to depict a
universe in decay. Lorca uses variations on the verbs romper, quebrar, and quebrantar
eighteen times in PNY, while Neruda employs these verbs thirty-four times in RT The
most commonly used form is the adjective roto, used by Lorca to describe cabeza, pa?o,
barcas, trajes, coraz?n, madera, axilas, capiteles, cristales, silencio, and by Neruda to modify
seres, costras, barco, agua, botella, rosas, alcuzas, pa?os, r?o, vidrio, pasos, candelabro,
objeciones, hbios, rinc?n, pescados, armadura, and abanico. David Gallagher writes that
"Most of the adjectives [in RT) are past participles that suggest decomposition: derretido
(melted), gastado (wasted), podrido (rotten), and so on" (51). This statement could also
apply to Lorcas New York poetry. For example, in "Paisaje de la multitud que orina" Lorca
describes a street scene in which a crowd is standing around waiting for a child to die:
"Todo est? roto por la noche, / abierta de piernas sobre las terrazas. / Todo est? roto por los
tibios ca?os / de una terrible fuente silenciosa." Neruda is more direct and less anecdotal
in his evocation of cosas rotas in "No hay olvido (Sonata)": "Si me pregunt?is de d?nde
vengo, / tengo que conversar con cosas rotas, / con utensilios demasiado amargos, / con
grandes bestias a menudo podridas / y con mi acongojado coraz?n." As usual, Neruda
proceeds from the impersonal to the personal, but his conversation with cosas rotas is what
matters most in this passage, for it is truly a leitmotiv of the entire book.

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 In conclusion, we are fully aware that poetic complaint regarding death and
destruction does not begin or end with Federico Garc?a Lorca and Pablo Neruda. In
1922, for example, T. S. Eliot evokes a barren universe in the following passage from
"The Wasteland":

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow

Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. (38)

Yes, Lorca and Neruda differ enormously from each other as lyric poets. Yet the language
and tone of P/VYand RT parallel each other because, like Eliot, these two poets are
attempting to express in poetry their feelings of alienation from the stony rubbish of the
worlds in which they are forced to live. While the Spaniard spreads his sadness and
indignation over the sidewalks of New York, the Chilean explores the equally barren
landscape of his own mind as he seeks to cope with life in the Orient. Neruda may have
summarized best the mood of both books in "D?bil del alba," one of the earliest poems in
RT. "Yo lloro en medio de lo invadido, entre lo confuso. . . . / Estoy solo entre materias
desvencijadas, / la lluvia cae sobre m?, y se me parece."

Works cited
Agos?n, Marjorie. Pablo Neruda, trans. Lorraine Ross. Boston: Twayne, 1986.

Aguirre, Margarita. Pablo Neruda, H?ctor Eandi. Correspondencia durante Residencia en

la Tierra. Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1980.

Alberti, Alberto. La arboleda perdida. Barcelona: Seix Barrai, 1975.

Alonso, Amado. Poes?a y estilo de Pablo Neruda. Interpretaci?n de una poes?a herm?tica.
4th ed. Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1968.

Cano Ballesta, Juan. La poes?a espa?oh entre pureza y revoluci?n (1930-1936). Madrid:
Gredos, 1972.
Correa, Gustavo. La poes?a m?tica de Federico Garc?a Lorca. Madrid: Gredos, 1975.

Craige, Betty Jean. Lorcas Poet in New York. The Fall into Consciousness. Lexington: UP
of Kentucky, 1977.
Dur?n, Manuel. "Pablo Neruda and the Romantic-Symbolist Tradition." Pablo Neruda,
ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, cl989. 179-89.

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 Eliot, Thomas Stearns. The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909?1950. New York:
Harcourt, Brace & World, 1971.

Gallagher, David P. Modern Latin American Literature. New York-London: Oxford

UP, 1973.
Garcia Lorca, Federico. Obras completas. 16th ed. Madrid: Aguilar, 1971.

Gibson, Ian. Federico Garc?a Lorca: A Life. New York: Pantheon Books, 1989.

Gleaves, Robert M. "Neruda and Lorca: A Meeting of Poetic Minds." Research Studies
48 (September 1980): 142-51.
Harris, Derek. Federico Garc?a Lorca: Poeta en Nueva York. London: Tamesis Books, 1978.

Neruda, Pablo. Confieso que he vivido. Buenos Aires: Losada, 1974. Abbreviation: CV.
-. Obras completas. 2d ed. Buenos Aires: Losada, 1962.
Rio, Angel del. Poeta en Nueva York: Pasados veinticinco a?os. Madrid: Taurus, 1958.

Teitelboim, Volodia. Neruda. An Intimate Biography. Austin: U of Texas P, 1991.

Thomas, Dylan. "Notes on the Art of Poetry." Modern Poetics, ed. James Scully. New
York: McGraw-Hill, 1965. 185-91.

Yeats, William Butler. The Collected Poems ofW. B. Yeats. New York: MacMillan, 1956.

36 CONFLUENCIA, FALL 1997

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