Reading through an essay by Spanish writer Vicente Molina Foix, we discussed what colleagues and scholars of Federico Garcia Lorca had to say about his works. Among the names mentioned: Vicente Aleixandre and Christopher Maurer. A recurring theme: Federico the poet is inseparable from Federico the musician.

To illustrate this point, we listened to different musical interpretations of Lorca's "Zorongo Gitano" including my own guitar solo arrangement that I use to accompany flamenco dancers and singers. Next, professor Echeverria put on a CD of cantaora Carmen Linares singing Zorongo por tangos and an old recording from 1921 of La Argentinita singing it accompanied on piano by Lorca himself.

In Lorca's poem "La Guitarra," we explored symbolism. Everyone had different ideas about what Lorca choice of words--who knew how many different meanings there were for 'blanco?'

I learned that really is no "right" answer in poetic interpretation. Just allow yourself to be taken in by the musicality of the lines, the beauty in the choice of words, sounds etc. Some things that cannot be expressed in words can only be expressed through music and vice-versa. Poetry is music.

Oops...I digress, I'm blabbing on and on about poetry. This blog is supposed to be about flamenco, right? Just bear with me for another few weeks. One of my upcoming assignments is to read Lorca's essay "Play and theory of Duende."

Study of poetry is something new to me. But so far I'm having a good time and later in the semester when everything starts to fall into place, I'll hopefully have something intelligent to say about Lorca that's relevant to us flamencos. Stay tuned!