Returning to the World from the Crazy Land of Addiction

What I write

The angry red face is there because it is the face of addiction, of a person so isolated from reality that he or she does not know any other way of being. This is what the crazy land of addiction is like. I know, because I spent twelve long years of my life living there. It broke up my marriage and the family I had with a loving wife and four small children. The world that I traded it for seemed adventuresome (and it was). It was also irresponsible and out of control. It wasn’t until early March, 1979 that I realized that if I didn’t quit drinking, I would lose my life. That was 35 years ago. Life has been unbelievably better since then, one day at a time. Following is the Introduction to the book I will publish either later this year or early in 2015. Mostly finished…

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Birth of a Poet

Birth of a Poet.

Birth of a Poet

 

The beautiful Spanish poet, playwright and writer, Federico Garcia Lorca, was born in Fuente Vaqueros, Granada, on the 5th June 1898. 116 years ago last Thursday. The life and work of this writer has touched me since I first came across his concept of duende as a teenager studying theatre at Glasgow University. Duende. What a powerful concept, process, lived experience. What a vibrant and terrifying feeling.

‘All that has dark sounds has duende.’

As Lorca goes on to explain:

‘Those dark sounds are the mystery, the roots that cling to the mire, that we all know, that we all ignore, but from which comes the very substance of art…the duende is a force not a labour, a struggle not a thought…The true struggle is with the duende.’

The duende. Forever on the knife-edge between life and death. Precarious and dangerous and vital. The duende. The essence of Federico Garcia Lorca, born on the 5th of June, 1998. The duende. Forever the duende.

‘Ya no me encontraron.

No me encontraron?

No, no me encontraron.’