Lorca's "Duende"

I've been captivated by Lorca's idea of "duende" since my readings, a couple years ago, of the Spanish poet, Miguel Hernandez, and most recently, the famed Pablo Neruda. For me, Latin poetry seems to possess the magic of "duende" more than any other poetry I read. As for "duende," I most love the following quote from Lorca's lecture "Play and Theory of the Duende":

The duende, then, is power, not work; it is struggle, not thought. I have heard an old maestro of the guiatar say, "The duende is not in the throat; the duende climbs up inside you, from the soles of the feet." In other words, it is not a question of ability, but of true, living style, of blood, of ancient culture, of the act of creation.

Indeed, all of us poets write laboriously with the intent of creating something that will lift the reader from the page to an extraordinary place of thoughts and emotions. And after hours and hours of work, finally, there are those few rare moments when we know--not from our thoughts, but from the "duende that climbs inside . . . from the soles of the feet"--that what we are creating is magical, mirculous, ethereal. And its source seems to be from a place of angels and hell.

(Jensea Storie, Editor)