‘The Body of García Lorca’
— Andrew Sargus Klein
‘The Body of García Lorca,’ by p.e. garcia, reads like an autopsy, a cataloguing of a dead body, as if the poet is standing over the body itself, taking thorough and careful notes that crackle with a magic that pays homage to one of the greatest poets who ever lived.
There’s a sort of restraint, here, a necessary calmness to capture the sorrow, the injustice, the loss of such a figure. The language is perfect for this: “knuckles rounded like the moon” (how can you look at the moon and not think of Lorca; “a forest of teeth riddled with woodcutters and beggars” (Lorca always seemed to be journeying and relaying the tale of a journey).
Garcia is able to intertwine Lorca’s iconic imagery with his very body, un-divorcing the thought (the poetry) from the body, holding both together, paying homage to both, as one.