Duende
Odes of Intimacy and Desire for the Shadow Punctuated with Images of Illusion and Reflection
N. Thomas Johnson-Medland
Photos by Bob Cook
Duende
Odes of Intimacy and Desire for the Shadow Punctuated
with Images of Illusion and Reflection
Copyright © 2013 N. Thomas Johnson-Medland. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
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ISBN 13: 978-1-62564-143-4
EISBN 13: 978-1-63087-581-7
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
Dedication
Tom’s:
For Glinda, Zachary, and Josiah - you have kept the joy in my heart alive like an ember against the cold.
Bob’s:
To my wife, Sarina. Thank you for keeping a light on in the window to help me find my way home.
“The duende I mean, secret and shuddering, is descended from that blithe daemon, all marble and salt, of Socrates, whom it scratched at indignantly on the day when he drank the hemlock, and that other melancholy demon of Descartes, diminutive as a green almond, that, tired of lines and circles, fled along the canals to listen to the singing of drunken sailors.”
—Federico Garcia Lorca, Theory and Play of Duende
“Seeking the duende, there is neither map nor discipline. We only know it burns the blood like powdered glass, that it exhausts, rejects all the sweet geometry we understand, that it shatters styles….”
—Federico Garcia Lorca, Theory and Play of Duende
“The duende is a momentary burst of inspiration, the blush of all that is truly alive, all that the performer is creating at a certain moment….It manifests itself principally among the musicians and poets of the spoken word, rather than among the painters and architects, for it needs the trembling of the moment and then a long silence.”
—Christopher Maurer, from the Introduction of Lorca’s “In Search of Duende”
Prefatory
This new volume of poetry is going to be tricky. The theme is a bit beyond the usual construct for the modern reader of poetry. DUENDE.
It is the concept that does not come immediately to fore of peoples’ ken. But, that is just to the cognitive side. It clearly does come to the fore of the unconscious mind because it is wrapped all around the role and function of it.
DUENDE is the shadow side . . . it is all of the personality that is really about making up that alter ego. It is the BATMAN side of Bruce Wayne. It is the weakness, brokenness, and darkness we go through and embody to make us whole.
And yet, in terms of poetry, it is the very thing that poets are putting out from their own being. It is the ethos, penthos, and pathos of every word/image of all poets of all times. It is at the heart of what mesmerizes us in the poems we are called to write, read, and hold deep within as meaningful, truthful, and alive. It is what we modern folk would call ROBUST INTEGRITY.
In scriptures, it appears as the prodigal son tales. It is the person who wanders away and then has an awakening and comes back to himself (but now he is more HIMSELF), but in a fuller way. Many faiths have this sort of broken open wholeness theme in them.
It is that part of a person that is just beyond being able to grasp, to hold, and to tether. It is that odd or undefinable characteristic in a person that somehow makes them seem more whole and settling than other people. It is the stuff that roots our perception of others in a deep and rich genuineness. It is what we may associate with the term “tried by fire”, in regard to the purifying process and nature of life on the other side of “hard-times”.
It will be a challenge—my challenge—to hold this jewel up before others and have them go, “hmmmm.”
I am up to it. And now, back to the page.
Introduction
The Hymn of the Pearl
Translated by William Wright, London, 1871
When I was a little child,
and dwelling in my kingdom,
in my father’s house, and was content with the wealth and the
luxuries of my nourishers,
from the East, our home,
my parents equipped me (and) sent me forth;
and of the wealth of our treasury
they took abundantly, (and) tied up for me a load
large and (yet) light, which I myself could carry,
gold of Beth-Ellaya,
and silver of Gazak the great,
and rubies of India,
and agates from Beth-Kashan,
and they furnished me with the adamant,
which can crush iron.
And they took off from me the glittering robe,
which in their affection they made for me,
and the purple toga,
which was measured (and) woven to my stature.
And they made a compact with me,
and wrote it in my heart, that it might not be forgotten:
“If thou goest down into Egypt,
and bringest the one pearl,
which is in the midst of the sea
around the loud-breathing serpent,
thou shalt put on thy glittering robe
and thy toga, with which (thou art) contented,
and with thy brother, who is next to us in authority,
thou shalt be heir in our kingdom.”
I quitted the East (and) went down,
there being two guardians,
for the way was dangerous and difficult,
and I was very young to travel it.
I passed through the borders of Maishan,
the meeting-place of the merchants of the East,
and I reached the land of Babel,
and I entered the walls of Sarbug.
I went down into Egypt,
and my companions parted from me.
I went straight to the serpent,
I dwelt in his abode,
(waiting)