Poeta en Nueva York como Federico García Lorca

“Poet in New York” is the title of a poetry collection written by Federico García Lorca between 1929 and 1930 during his time at Columbia University in New York and his subsequent trip to Cuba. It was first published in 1940, four years after his assassination.

García Lorca left Spain in 1929 to give lectures in Cuba and New York. However, the reason for his journey might have been a pretext to seek a change of scenery and escape the oppressive environment surrounding him. Due to a romantic failure and the internal turmoil he felt about his sexuality, Lorca suffered from deep depression during this time. He lived in New York from June 25, 1929, to March 4, 1930, before moving on to Cuba, where he stayed for three months.

The American society deeply impacted Lorca, and from the beginning of his stay, he harbored a profound aversion to capitalism and the industrialization of modern society, while also condemning the treatment of the Black minority. “Poet in New York” served as Lorca’s outcry against horror and injustice, addressing the dehumanization and alienation of modern society. He called for a new human dimension dominated by freedom, justice, love, and beauty.

For these reasons, it can be considered one of the most significant and relevant poetic works in the history of this art due to its transcendentalism. It offers poetic criticism during a period of unprecedented economic and social changes in human history, making it a profound pessimistic reflection and a bridge between modernism and the new technological era.