Diego Isaias Hernández Méndez, Convertiendse en Characoteles / Sorcerers Changing into Their Animal Forms (detail), 2013, oil on canvas. Arte Maya Tz’utujil Collection.
AGNI 53
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It tires me so much
Miguel Hernández (1910–1942) has been described by Philip Levine as “one of the great talents of the century.” At the end of the Spanish Civil War, at the height of his creative powers, he was arrested and sentenced to death by General Franco. His crime: “Poet and soldier of the mother country.” Though the sentence was eventually commuted to life imprisonment, he died three years later of tuberculosis.
Ted Genoways is the author of three books of poetry—most recently Anna, Washing (University of Georgia Press, 2008), a selection for the VQR Poetry Series—as well as Walt Whitman and the Civil War: America’s Poet during the Lost Years of 1860-1862 (University of California Press, 2009). He was appointed the editor of VQR in 2003. (updated 7/2010)