American Duende (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781962847315)

After years of reading American poets I came under the spell of the Spanish poets of the last century, in particular Cesar Vallejo, Pablo Nervda, Antonio Machado, Blas de Otero, and probably most of all, Federico Garcia Lorca. Here was something totally different. An energy that I had been looking for in my own work, an authority that opened its eyes and spoke about what it saw. As Blas de Otero said in his poem Loyalty:

I believe in you, my country. I will tell you what I have seen: lightning flashes of rage, love in coldness, and a knife that is yelling, tearing up bits of bread; still there is darkness standing alone today; I have seen it and I believe it.

Finding that energy was a slow process. Over a span of about thirty years, while working on other manuscripts, occasionally a poem would seem to fit in American Duende. This book basically covers the time period between 1971, when I knew I wanted to be a poet and was just wandering around in the world, and the event of hurricane Katrina, that pretty much demolished the city of my birth. And while this book is a homage to poets I've read and admired; in the end I simply wanted a book that was thought-provoking and enjoyable.

• Jay Griswold