Walking to Find Duende: The Best of Spanish Poets: Lorca & Machado

This three-hour class taught by poet Jim Moreno, for beginning or seasoned poets, walks the path of duende, a term of Federico Garcia Lorca’s career poetics describing a demonic earth spirit containing irrationality, earthiness, and a heightened awareness of death. Moreno also has a grasp of the term as the space between words on the page, or the silence between words or line breaks in recitation.

This 3-hour class is divided into two 90-minute segments. The first segment will be all about Mr. Lorca’s Duende, with research on the topic conducted from the book In Search of Duende: Federico Garcia Lorca by Norman Thomas di Giovanni. This 90-minute segment will include quotes from well-written prose essays that spell out Lorca’s ars poetica, a poem that explains the “art of poetry,” or a meditation on poetry using the form and techniques of a poem.

The second 90-minutes explores the genius of our second Spanish poet, Antonio Machado, famous for his poetry and his walks after teaching school around scenic Barcelona, Spain; e.g., the way Machado’s consciousness on walks around Barcelona changed the way Moreno walks around San Diego: Machado suggested we pay attention to the landscape, the history of the landscape, the universal beauty, the synchronicity, and what I call the “hear and now” aesthetics. Border of a Dream: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado and Times Alone: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado, translated by Robert Bly, are the books researched by Moreno for the second segment.

This class is not a critique class. This is a poetry workshop for composing original poetry. A safe place with the foundation of a container of respect and dignity for all participants no matter what culture or color of skin. The class is accompanied by a syllabus with bibliography, quotes, film clips, and poetry that will give you hours of pleasurable reading post class. The syllabus and Zoom link will be issued to participants on Saturday, July 22, 2023. Poets are asked to enter the Zoom meeting room at 12:50 p.m. on Sunday, July 23, 2023 in case you have trouble navigating the internet.

For more information visit: writeyourstorynow.org

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