Luis Cernuda (1902–1963), one of Spain’s leading twentieth-century poets, was born in Seville, came of age in Madrid among the cohort of poets known as the Generation of 1927, left the country during the civil war in 1937, and spent the rest of his life in exile, first in Great Britain, then in New England (he taught at Mount Holyoke from 1947 to 1951), and finally in Mexico, where he died in 1963. His books in English include Selected Poems, translated by Reginald Gibbons (Sheep Meadow Press); collected prose poems, Written in Water, translated by Stephen Kessler (City Lights); and last poems, Desolation of the Chimera, translated by Stephen Kessler (White Pine Press). “The Family” is from Reality and Desire, new selected poems, forthcoming in 2015 from Black Widow Press.