troubled than the poet is, for both suffer destruction, “blood and smoke” (pt. 2),
but paradoxically without losing their powers of transcendence and rebirth.
In other words, the real says something, but poetry provides a counter-vision
in tune with that of the dedicatee:
It said to my mother earth: am I to return?
It laughed, and threw away from me the worm’s garment
And touching my face with the halo of light
Coming back to her, a youth in surprise,
Riding my green-wood-steed
Shouting at her thousand gates, but sleep overcame all
Drowning the enchanted city with blood and smoke.
(Ibid. 142)Identifications with Lorca or dedications to him as a poet and person tend
to run smoothly. In his poetry as much as in his personal career, Lorca brought
to the poets of the 1950s and 1960s what was needed—the poet as fighter,
singer, and seer. However, more importantly, almost half of his poetry recon-
structs scenes, attitudes, notions, and Andalusian poetics of joy and rapture
familiar to a large number of Arab poets. Furthermore, as a martyr he evokes
a great deal of mourning usually balanced by his love for life.
It is possible to argue the popularity of Lorca with Arab poets on many
levels and grounds. One can cite two more writers as examples, a prose refer-
ence to Lorca’s poetics by Ma.mnd Darwlsh and a poem by Mu.ammad ‘Aflfl
Mayar. ‘Aflflwrote his poem, “Jarlmah flGhirnmyah” (A Murder in Granada)
in 1962. The poem was written in the same vein as many poems that address
Lorca, the city, the gypsies, and death. The poet appended a note to the effect
that it incorporates lines and details from Lorca’s poetry and life, adding,
“The poem carries my own disheartening, for the subject is an opening into
that.”^44 The identification between the poet and the addressee centers on both
the struggle, including the revolutionary poetics, and the song, the one that
makes up the lyrical quality of this poetic:
Silence...the poet is in the serenity of the mi.rmb^45
Like naked flowers. Like a star swimming in water
Inspired by the red brick of the deserted well in Alhambra Palace
Inspired by the stream of the spilt milk and the era of the green grain ear
Inspired by the agitated alley
By the bright olive leaves
Silence, you summer of depths...for the poet is possessed
Mourning tin moons...
(Ibid. 285)Identifications and projections may not be the right poetic means to
subjective experience despite their popularity among poets. Lorca’s colors and
DEDICATIONS AS POETIC INTERSECTIONS