What did Lorca mean by ‘crocodiles’ in his poem ‘The King of Harlem’?

Question

The poet Federico García Lorca, when he was studying at Colombia University visited Harlem with a friend of his, Nella Larsen, a black novelist. It made a tremendous impression upon him and its influence is visible in some of the poems he wrote about New York. He could not understand the overt prejudice displayed by New Yorkers. One of the poems he wrote there is, ‘The King of Harlem’. In the English translation in *The Selected Poems of Federico García Lorca*, the first stanza goes: >With a spoon He scooped out the eyes of crocodiles and spanked the monkeys on their bottoms With a spoon And a later stanza goes: >That night the King of Harlem with a very hard spoon scooped out the eyes of crocodiles And spanked the monkeys on their bottoms. With a spoon. The negroes cried abased among umbrellas and golden suns, the mulattoes were stretching gum, anxious to reach the white torso, and the wind blurred mirrors and burst open the veins of the dancers. What does Lorca mean by the image of ‘crocodiles’ here?

Answer 1

"That night the King of Harlem with a very hard spoon

scooped out the eyes of crocodiles

And spanked the monkeys on their bottoms.

With a spoon.

The negroes cried abased

among umbrellas and golden suns,

the mulattoes were stretching gum, anxious to reach the white torso,

and the wind blurred mirrors

and burst open the veins of the dancers."

Excerpt from 'The King of Harlem".

Actually, I see this poem as a homage to the Black and Mulatto experiences in America. After a Black tour guide showed Lorca the Harlem area, he must have been inundated with the servile conditions of Blacks in America. All peoples bleed red, not black or brown or yellow, etc. The Blacks wished for acceptance in a surrounding culture that made them feel anxious, striving for acceptance by assimilation through pregnancies or educational channels, etc. After all, many of them had been removed by force from their native lands. Even Harlem required its own King, who was all-powerful and controlling the life of Harlem inhabitants. The crocodile and monkey references emanate from the African continent region.Also, Africa has bred Kings, so they have a place in the multinational Harlem society in America. Let me know if this makes more sense to you.