23 feb 2005

If you learn another language and immerse yourself in the literature written in the language, you will find that the duende you came looking for dissipates, occupying only a small corner of the territory you've discovered. In its place is an entire system, as complex and multifaceted as the one you left behind. Think of poetry in English, written on several continents and islands and in a multiplicity of styles. All that variability exists in Spanish too! It's not one monolith ruled by a Lorquian "duende." Your preferences and inclinations within the new system will not be identical to those of your original system. In other words, you might like something in Spanish where you would't necessarily respect the equivalent in English. This is not Charles Bernstein going to look for a language poet in Argentina. What's the point of that? [ed. note: no offense meant to Charles' Argentine colleague, the briliant Ernesto Grossman.]

There are equivalencies that suggest themselves. For example, a conflict between two ways of viewing poetry, one associated with the avant-garde, the other resolutely middle-brow and expressing hostility to the avant-garde. I'm going to be on the same side in both systems, but I'm not sure the avant-gardes would recognize each other in the mirror.

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