Did you know that Federico García Lorca (1898-1936) – perhaps the most celebrated Spanish poet and playwright of the 20th century – has a special connection to Vermont?

In 1929, Lorca came to the US to study English at Columbia University, and that summer he visited his friend and lover, Phillip Cummings, a native of Hardwick, in Vermont. The two spent time together in a classic camp on the shores of Lake Eden, where Lorca was inspired to write several poems, including his “Double Poem of Lake Eden,” a cornerstone of his final collection, Poet in New York.

In August 1936, at the very beginning of the Spanish Civil War, Lorca dropped off the manuscript at his publisher in Madrid and took the train to Granada to visit his family, where he was picked up by Francoist insurgents, unceremoniously executed by firing squad, and buried in an unmarked grave.

In her talk, Patricia Billingsley will explore the history of Lorca’s relationship with Cummings, discuss how their ten days together in Vermont influenced Lorca’s life and poetry, and explain why much of this important history was actively hidden by his surviving family and biographers for decades.

Patricia A. Billingsley is an independent researcher and biographer with a special interest in poets and writers of the early twentieth century. Originally based in western Massachusetts, she maintains close ties to the Vermont region where Lorca and Cummings created their own private Eden in August 1929.