Okay, moving on from gushing--
Duende is a poem that urges forward and continues living despite external pressure. The speaker's personal pains and fears are reflected back at her through a collective that survives alongside her. The thread of travel in this work ("They say you're leaving on Monday") makes me locate that the speaker is either in a different neighborhood from her own or in a completely different country, a country and/or neighborhood that speaks Spanish, one that practices flamenco--which sparks the reference to Lorca's conception of duende.
The speaker's very specific bodily focus of the oppression others face: "nails in their feet" and "They defy gravity," a way to show cross-cultural solidarity between these native Spanish-speaking neighbors and herself. She is hesitant to highlight that alliance, however: "And I hate to do it here / To set myself heavily beside them." Instead of crafting a clear response, a stable sense of allyship, or creating a clear agenda for what the poem should do in relating these experiences--the speaker's and her sense of other peoples--she instead crafts ambiguity.
But I think all of these experiences culminate in a speaker's sense of pushing on. This sense of persistence, or survival, is carried through in the last part, where "There is always a road, / The sea, dark hair, dolor" [pain] despite the pain, despite "the blow / of loss after loss". It is like Smith has taken the notion of duende--that we write in conversation with our fullest selves, the death and mystery and poignant letting go, that Smith phrases as "furious music heavy in the throat. / They drag it out"-- and infused it with her own meaning, her own sense of that space, which has so much more to do with moving forward into "the world I know / and the world I fear / Threaten to meet".
Avren,
ReplyDeleteI appreciated your post especially pointing out the hesitation to clearly mark an "allyship" with a group she is an outsider of yet feels connected through struggle and oppression. I think about movements and individuals who claim solidarity quite often, especially when there are intersecting relationships and between different movements happening alongside one another. Your post prompted me to reflect deeper on inclusivity, decoloniality, and shared experiences among oppressed peoples and the actionality of it all. I know for myself I have a really difficult time feeling part of any movement, or group because of my mixed race background. This poem made me feel very hopeful because of exactly what you mentioned, the sense of persistence or survival in "there is always a road." I can feel her fuel, and it motivates and inspires.
Thanks for sharing!
Nice job because you looked at the craft on the lines in the persistence of the self in the location of the body. Good work
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