What I’ve Been Reading
Reflections on some recent reads.
It’s been awhile since I shared some thoughts on what I’ve been reading. Today I have for you a poetry collection, two memoirs, and a book that resulted from a series of Twitter posts.
I listened to Duende: Poems by Tracy K. Smith (Graywolf Press, 2007) on audio. This is her second collection of poetry. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 2012 for her third collection, Life on Mars (Graywolf Press, 2011) and was the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2017–2019. Most recently Smith stepped down from hosting The Slowdown, a poetry podcast which was one of my favorites.
Duende takes its title from a descriptor by Federico García Lorca (1898–1936), a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director who said that duende is “that dark and elusive force that is the creative and elastic power that an artist seeks to channel from within. It can lead the artist to revelation but must also accept and even serenade the possibility of death.” Knowing that, you would assume Duende is a fairly dark collection of poetry. And you would be correct.
