I. It is said that my great-great-grandfather had a Ph.D. from the Sorbonne and corresponded with Marx, and that this correspondence is archived in the Kremlin. That was long ago, before his school in St. Petersburg was closed by the Czar, and the family was saved from deportation to Siberia by a friend of my … More A Middle Class Story

“El secreto del arte es tener duende. El duende es el espíritu escondido de la España sin consuelo. Todo lo que tiene sonidos negros tiene duende. Estos sonidos son el misterio…” The secret of [this] art is to have duende. Duende is the hidden spirit of the inconsolable [part of] Spain. All that has black … More La señorita del abanico

I am too intellectual, it is said. That is a problem because the intellectual can never be personal, and the personal is what counts. I am hiding my face, and I ought to reveal myself. I disagree. It was my original intention in these pages to be as ethereal as Le Colonel Chabert. Cybernetic words … More On Masks

Federico García Lorca published this prose poem in the Revista de Occidente in November, 1927. It is beautiful and mysterious: A las doce de la noche llegué a la ciudad. La escarcha bailaba sobre un pie. “Una muchacha puede ser morena, puede ser rubia, pero no debe ser ciega.” Esto decía el dueño del mesón … More Santa Lucía y San Lázaro

. . . in the land of Mordor where the shadows lie (Tolkien). When Frodo Baggins threw the Ring into the fires of Mount Doom, the only place where it could be destroyed, the Shadow lifted. One year in late spring I found the Ring. Having it was exhilarating until early fall. I have been … More Shadow

There is always at least one student fascinated with One Hundred Years of Solitude. Today one such student said that in this novel, the characters are impelled to act according to a series of paradigms, with which they work but which they do not control. The containing and shaping influence of these paradigms does not … More One Hundred Years

I wanted, but did not have, an English version of Garcilaso’s canción To the Flower of Gnido. I wanted it for people like Stephen Bess, who has a poetic and artistic blog, and likes old texts, but does not read Spanish. I also wanted it out of mere curiosity, to see how such a translation … More On Odes and Songs

This sonnet “in praise of a poetess called Antonia” is a tautogram: all of the words start with the same letter. It is not clear to me whether I understand it. I may have to translate it, and/or look up a commentary. A summary, as Antrobiótica points out, would be to join the first and … More Tautogram

This is a famous poem by Garcilaso de la Vega. Everyone always quotes from it, or excerpts it, and I have decided it is time to write down the entire text, for those of us who have not memorized it. I have not found an English translation. It is a very melodious poem, flexible at … More Oda ad florem Gnidi

The politicians have shown that they are not the answer to our suffering. The poor are just made the ladders of the politicians. The politician is an animal that hibernates. They always come out in the election season to make empty promises and then they disappear. But we know that lies are for the time … More M’du Hlongwa