For Freedom I Bleed, Fight, Survive

Miguel Hernández (Orihuela, 1910) fought in the Spanish Civil War and was known as the poet of the people and the revolution. From a very young age his experience tending sheep and goats gave him a keen appreciation of the natural world and compassion for the farm laborer. He read voraciously and as a teenager published his poems in local magazines earning for himself the moniker of «the goatherd poet.» He made numerous trips to Madrid where he developed close friendships with other poets, among them Vicente Aleixandre and the Chilean, Pablo Neruda. After the defeat of the Republic, he was imprisoned by Franco’s forces. He died of tuberculosis in jail in Alicante in March, 1942. His most well-known books of poetry are Perito en lunas (1933), El rayo que no cesa (1936), Viento del pueblo (1937), El hombre acecha (1939 printed but unpubli-shed—posthumous facsimile edition 1981), Cancionero y romancero de ausencias (written 1938-1941, first posthumous edition, 1958).