The sound of your voice is forever lost

Image of the statue of Federico García Lorca in Madrid (photo by Isabel del Rio)

Poem by Isabel del Rio

SYNOPSIS

Federico García Lorca was the most celebrated Spanish poet of the 20th century. He was born in Granada (Andalucía) in 1898 and was executed in 1936 by fascist forces at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. He wrote the most outstanding poetry and the most heartrending plays. Yet, unbelievably, not a single recording of his voice has survived. Thus, I wrote this poem (a very free sonnet).

dedicated to Federico García Lorca



The sound of your voice is forever lost
to us. We can admire the many photographs of you
looking beautiful and we can read the prodigious glory 
of your words; yet nowhere can we hear you speaking as a man 

or reciting as a poet. I have searched everywhere
for your baritone voice, as most have described it, with no
luck at all. Blame it on the legal wrangles between those 
who claim they owned a tape of your speech –this 

could be the subject for one of your plays where characters search
endlessly for the truth– or on the ravages of a civil war where all 
was lost. So many recordings were meant to happen, but not a single one did. Could it be that you wanted your voice to be present only in what you wrote: 

my writing is so much more than I can ever be, my
words are so much more than a voice.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Material should not be published in another periodical before at least one year has elapsed since publication in Whispering Dialogue. *أن لا يكون النص قد تم نشره في أي صحيفة أو موقع أليكتروني على الأقل (لمدة سنة) من تاريخ النشر. *All content © 2021 Whispering Dialogue or respective authors and publishers, and may not be used elsewhere without written permission. جميع الحقوق محفوظة للناشر الرسمي لدورية (هَمْس الحِوار) Whispering Dialogue ولا يجوز إعادة النشر في أيّة دورية أخرى دون أخذ الإذن من الناشر مع الشكر الجزيل