In 1929, the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca spent nearly a month in Bushnellsville. Several poems later immortalized in his collection Poeta en Nueva York were inspired by the area's rural tranquility.
In the summer of 1929, the Spaniard Angel del Río (1891–1953) and his wife, Puerto Rican Amelia Agostini del Río (1896–1996), hosted the famous Spanish poet and dramaturg Federico García Lorca (1898–1936) at their rented farmhouse in the hamlet of Bushnellsville, in the town of Shandaken, New York. At the time, the hamlet was mostly farmland with a cider mill, ice houses, several general stores, and a post office.
Before and after Lorca’s visit, the del Ríos regularly summered in the Catskills region while on break from their academic duties in New York City. Angel del Río was an eminent scholar of Spanish literature who served as director of Columbia University’s Hispanic Institute and its prestigious journal Revista Hispanica Moderna. He is credited with helping develop the discipline of Hispanic studies in the United States. Amelia Agostini del Río was the prolific author of more than 45 books of poetry, essays, plays, short stories and art history. Among them was one of the first academic monographs about the Puerto Rican experience in the United States. She was a professor and longtime chair of the Spanish Department at Barnard College.
Federico García Lorca stayed with the del Ríos in their Bushnellsville farmhouse for three weeks, from August 29 to September 18, 1929. He had befriended the couple—who would serve as his hosts and guides during his time in New York—a few years before in Madrid. According to Lorca’s biographer Leslie Stanton, Lorca thoroughly enjoyed the tranquility of Bushnellsville, taking long walks and studying English, ostensibly the main reason for his journey to the United States.
Although the scenery could not be said to have enhanced Lorca’s proficiency in the English language, which he never mastered, it did ignite his poetic imagination. His time in Bushellsville led to the creation of some of the poems that would later appear in his iconic, posthumous collection, Poeta en Nueva York (1942). Lorca’s bond with the farmhouse caretaker’s children who frequently followed him on his bucolic walks inspired the poems “El niño Stanton” and “Niña ahogada en el pozo.” These works are contemplative explorations of childhood innocence. Melancholy permeates other poems written in the Catskills, such as “Nocturno del hueco,” “Ruina,” and “Paisaje con dos tumbas y un perro asirio,” which meditate on the passage of time, loss, and death.
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