Post-Spanish Civil War Poetry

[Mitch]

"When I was a child
my grandmother told tales
about princes and witches...
Always the good succeeded!
Then the teacher
the Sacred Example
with her episodes...
The good succeeded!
Later, films,
juvenile texts: a war and another war.
The good succeeded.
At last another real war,
with real dead
And always
the good succeeded!
...

And I ask you,
you, worker:
you have always lost:
Did the good succeed?"

Felix Casanova, Canary Islands Poet - born in La Gomera.

[Mitch]

These tortuous winding roads in the arid and mountainous interior of Gran Canaria (one of the 7 Canary Islands) were carved out by Spanish Prisoners of war post the 1930s civil war. They are not far from the hotel inland from Las Palmas where Franco plotted his coup.

This was taken on a coach tour which was full to the brim with British holidaymakers from the Gran Canaria resorts of Puerto Rico, Maspalomas and Playa del Ingles (magic gay scene in the Playa del Ingles by the way - up there with Blackpool). Anywise, we had a great Spanish guy comparing the tour, and he went into a lot of detail about a meeting he'd had with one of the guys who was a prisoner of war and had worked on these roads - paid nothing, it backbreaking work and he did it for years.

Some of the most interesting information comes from people's experiences, and is not always to be found in the text books.

[michele cryer]

Great Stuff Mitch!! I agree with you...anecdotes beat text books anyday!