Dancing to the Rhythm of Free Verse: My First Attempt at Poetry

A pile of dance clothes

is a lump of dreams

damp with the flume of sweat 

that trickles down her back

with each flex of her wings.

Her blood is the dowry

she pays to the devil

at the front of the room

to be given the chance to dance.

The flood breaks, a thud she makes.

...5, 6…*drip*...7, 8…*sploosh*

Her debt is paid.

After my poetry slam adventure, I thought it was time to take a deep breath, sit down with a good old fashioned pencil and tattered journal, and attempt this strange new writing style. In my poetry class, we have been talking a lot about a particular Spanish concept called duende, which I can best describe as the haunting feeling you get after viewing or creating a piece of art or performance, an almost indescribable sensation that one has to experience to fully understand. A “you’ll know it when you feel it” sort of thing. However, 20th century avant-garde poet Federico Garcia Lorca is best able to flesh out the concept in his essay, “Theory and Play on the Duende.”

To write this poem, then, I decided to come up with a topic that I could give a dark twist per the requirements of duende. Having just taken my first ballet class in two and a half years, I was inspired to address the negative aspects of the profession by referring to the dance instructor as the “devil/at the front of the room” to describe the manipulation and hurt that is often caused to female ballet students by their male directors. These dancers will often do almost anything to win the attention of their teachers in hopes of landing the next big role that will propel them to stardom. I juxtapose the diabolic rendering of the dance teacher by referring to the dancer’s shoulder blades as “wings,” thus painting the mental picture of an angel. I thought this was fitting as Lorca discusses devils and angels at length when describing the concept of duende. Blood is quite prevalent in the life of a ballet dancer as pointe shoes result in bloody blisters, so I decided to take my reference to the blood a step further into the dark. As both blood and sweat trickle, I thought connecting the two with the line “5, 6,...*drip*...7,8 *sploosh* would be a powerful move. I incorporated the counting commonly used by dancers to keep in time to the music to incorporate another element of duende that I had just read about in the Lorca essay: radically abandoning traditional form. The end of the poem hints at death, another big part of duende, as the “thud” suggests the sound of the dancer falling into a pool of blood and sweat, paying the ultimate price just for “the chance to dance.” I was surprised at how quickly the lines came to me, especially the first nine. However, I struggled with the last three as it was quite difficult to come up with an additional internal rhyme that did not include a fifth polysyllabic word. I am also quite used to reading final rhyming couplets, so avoiding end rhyme was difficult. However, I am quite pleased with the final result and am looking forward to learning ways I can revise my work in class.

Music and dance by http://www.FlamencoLA.com Choreography: http://www.arleenhurtado.com Music: http://www.SpanishGuitarPlayer.com

Does this performance have duende?

I am enjoying my discovery that lyric poetry represents the intersection of my passions of dancing, writing, and music despite my unfamiliarity with the art form and that Lorca’s definition of duende speaks to my experiences in the arts. I likened the “momentary burst of inspiration, the blush of all that is truly alive, all that the performer is creating at a certain moment” that he mentions to the sense of creative exhilaration I chase while delving deep into a new topic for my blog or the sense of sheer joy that lights up my smile when performing onstage. However, the “death awareness” that is integral in duende is not lost in the happy spectacle of a light-hearted ballet. Of all the dance styles, ballet appears to emphasize one’s mortality the most (ironically, of course, as ballet is French and French bullfighting does not possess the same excitement as that of the Spanish as there is a lack of awareness of death). The underlying knowledge that one’s body and ability to execute the graceful steps that nonetheless torque one’s muscles and grind bones is fading day by day is what throws passionate young dancers into a rigorous, monastic life at a ballet company in devotion to one’s art. It is what extracts the last vibration of energy from the exhausted principal ballerina as she rounds her 32nd fouetté turn at the end of a three act ballet. It is responsible for missed proms, online college courses, children leaving their hometowns and parents at age twelve, blisters and bruised toenails, and continuous competition of too-mature child prodigies all vying for the chance to make their dreams come true before it is too late (aka before age 30). On this slightly irrational pursuit, many ballet dancers confront diabolical aspects of the dance world--the bull of eating disorders rears its ugly head, or the dancer must courageously avert the beast of unwanted sexual attention from colleagues or directors with a red muleta. Slowly but surely, however, each torro is stabbed in the neck as ballet companies make room for different races, sexual orientations, abilities, and body types. Ballet dancers that navigate their way through this stormy system and rise to the top prove their “blood-worthiness” and show off the duende that overtakes them in performance. As they watch stories of love and death unfold onstage, audiences feel the unique, indescribable sensation that “climbs up inside you, from the soles of your feet.” 

Yet many ballet dancers grow complacent, thinking they can just get by on talent and technical mastery alone. As a young girl staring at the naturally high arch of my feet or flatness of my stomach or alignment of the pelvis or slickness of my updo or fixating on tens of thousands of other aesthetic considerations, I had not yet learned the valuable lesson that duende teaches us: duende is not about skill, it is about passion. The most technically flawless performance can totally lack duende while the most unrefined and amateur performance is capable of achieving duende. Perhaps this was why my teacher constantly stressed artistry, following one’s hands with both the head and eyes, feeling deeply and letting the emotion speak for itself through each movement. She did not want any of her students to fall in the same ugly trap, the ignorance of duende.