June 5 was the 115th anniversary of the poet
Federico Garcia Lorca’s birth. Happy birthday, Freddy! LIVE from the New York
Public Library threw a fine celebration for him on June 4, with readings of his
work, readings of work he influenced, a dramatic performance of a lecture he
gave expounding on his experience in the U.S. and the creation of Poet in New York, and a grand finale
performance by Patti Smith, who recited two Lorca poems and sang a couple
songs.
It is Lorca who is credited with advancing the concept of duende as an aesthetic mode and artistic
ideal. Literally speaking, a duende
is a mythological creature –a goblin or a sprite – that causes mischief and
disruption. The word is derived from the Spanish word for “owner” (dueno), and the implication is that the
uncontrollable and out-of-hand is the true ruler of the world. Lorca’s vision
of duende is that the artist needs to
surrender to danger and disruption in order to get to the heart of his art.
From the opening lines of his lecture:
Well then, before reading poems
aloud to so many people, the first thing one must do is invoke the duende. This is the only way all of you
will succeed at the hard task of understanding metaphors as soon as they arise,
without depending on intelligence or on a critical apparatus… Poems like these
are not likely to be understood without the cordial help of the duende.
The poets on hand this evening to pay tribute to Lorca –
Philip Levine, Tracey K. Smith, Paul Muldoon, John Giorno – remarked on the
danger of the duende, the risk
involved in letting go of rational thought in surrender to deeper, darker
forces. “The duende does not come at
all unless he sees that death is possible…The duende wounds. In the healing of that wound, which never closes,
lies a man’s work,” Muldoon quoted from Lorca’s lecture “Theory and Play of the
Duende.”
The poet and musician Patti Smith has been surrendering to
the duende for all 40 or so years of
her remarkable career. Though her poetry hero is Arthur Rimbaud, certainly Lorca’s
work is progeny of Rimbaud’s poetic call to disrupt the senses in order to find
true meaning. Anyone who’s seen her perform knows that Smith channels forces
from beyond and surrenders to wherever those forces take her through her
performance. Likewise, the actor Will Keen, who interpreted selections from
Lorca’s Poet in New York lecture,
which is interspersed with poems from the book, gave a riveting performance
that I’m sure convinced those new in the audience to Lorca’s work that he was
worth getting to know better. An additional treat to the evening was Lorca
scholar Christopher Maurer’s invitation to Lorca’s niece, Laura Garcia Lorca,
to the stage to read several poems in their original Spanish.
“Lorca had no wish to see his poems dead on the page,” said
the evening’s host, Paul Holdengraber. As the celebration of the poet’s life
and work continue through July 21 (follow the link for more info: http://lorcanyc.com), is assurance that Lorca’s poems
and legacy will live on.