Ode to My Suit Neruda & Lorca

When, in “Ode to My Suit,” Pablo Neruda imagines being killed by a bullet, he may have been thinking of the death of the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca. Neruda met Lorca in October 1933, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In the spring of 1934, Neruda moved to Spain to serve as Chilean consul, first in Barcelona, then in Madrid, where he reunited with Lorca. They became very close friends, united by common artistic and political devotions. Neruda wrote “Ode to Federico García Lorca” in 1935. At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War in August 1936 Federico García Lorca was arrested and killed by Nationalist forces. It is thought that he was shot, but his body has never been found. The death of Lorca affected Neruda deeply. He wrote a eulogy for his friend.