Duende

Starred review from May 21, 2007
Federico García Lorca famously described duende
in relation to flamenco music, but understood it as the dark wellspring for any artistic endeavor. As interpreted by Smith in her Laughlin Award–winning second collection, duende
is the unforgiving place where the soul confronts emotion, acknowledges death and finds poetry. Smith writes from various unconsoled spaces, where “nowledge is regret” and “ach word is a wish.” About the view from a failing marriage, Smith says: “I liked best/ When there was nothing/ That I could/ Or could not see.” These 30 poems are roving, alluding to diverse countries and political situations, often shifting perspectives and locations abruptly between sections. Identity and history are often sources of pain, and Smith adopts various marginalized personas (Flores Woman, Persephone, John Dall, Ugandan girls sold into wifedom) unhinged by displacement. Identity politics bleed into personal lyric, where the poet admits, “I am not/ What you intend me to be.” Writing in the voice of a Ugandan girl, Smith says, “Somewhere in every life there is a line./ One side to the other and you are gone./ Not disappeared but undone.” Although the site of undoing may well be the source of duende
, the poet's lyric brilliance and political impulses never falter under the considerable weight of her subject matter.

Pulitzer Prize winner and Poet Laureate of the United States Tracy K. Smith has a voice that is almost as beautiful as the imagery in this second collection of her work. She uses her voice well to clarify the structure of each poem and avoid the tics (such as that rising lilt at the end of each line) that make so many poets poor readers of their own work. Her reading is helped, of course, by the outstanding quality of her poetry--which stands at the front of contemporary American literature. If you already know her work, this is a chance to hear her interpret it; if you don't, this is a chance to discover something wonderful. D.M.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine