The duende...where is the duende? Through the empty arch comes a wind, a mental wind blowing relentlessly over the heads of the dead, in search of new landscapes and unknown accents; a wind that smells of baby’s spittle, crushed grass, and jellyfish veil, announcing the constant baptism of newly created things.      —Federico Garcia Lorca

           The idea of “duende” as the driving, passionate inspiration that moves poets to write originates from lectures of Federico Garcia Lorca [1], where he explains; “all that has black sounds has duende.” It is with this dark passion that Arsenic Lobster Poetry Journal seeks to fill its pages.

           The task of completing the 2007 Arsenic Lobster comes at no convenient time; almost a year ago, my husband and I purchased and began renovating a 120-year-old brick, two flat in Pilsen Chicago. I became pregnant and started graduate studies. Today, we have a newborn son (who is right now sleeping in his bouncy chair and grumbling for his pacifier), moved into our new house (which is still not quite finished but then again, I don’t think it ever will be and isn’t that the fun of the whole thing?) and I have started back to work—the only time I ever get any rest. Now, I am contemplating my return to graduate school. In the relentless wind of my new life, it is in the Lobster that I may still find my duende:

                      from the drown, she rises
                      heavy bones soaked wings shorn she
                      tumbles into hips
                      onto ripples of hardwood

                      a barren land: she is not for the touching.

           Even after the baby’s spittle has dried and the aroma in the air smells more like whacked horse weeds than crushed grass, I am still delighted by the new landscapes the Lobster has to offer:

                      After you
                      left with the morning rain
                      wind swept
                      the meadows dry. The bees
                      found little
                      to dance about back home.

           It is here, within these pages that one can discover the cosmos is full of rats, / and the colors run out their ears and experience the back pain of heaven. It is here, within this book, that one can feel the duende venting and relentlessly turning:

                      House, … I have hoped
                      each tornado would unscrew
                      you, lift you, would spread you
                      like dandelions.

           The duende scatters in the wind and lands upon these pages. I am certain that after reading the 2007 Arsenic Lobster you will discover her face, an artistic mess and feel inspired to say something born. You may Unwrap the gothic doll in an unsealed package or appreciate the mental wind in the pale glow blowing as relentlessly as diapers, as desperate as the subcontractors renovating a 120-year-old two flat, and as rich as a graduate school student churning in a landscape as ever changing as a newborn baby’s grumblings.

           Truly, the duende is just a page away—a fish-flutter within the wildest depths /... ripe and rushing, a lobster waiting to be cracked and enjoyed, a disturbing black gill at the bottom of the world pumping / its enormous pain and I invite you to revel in its discovery.

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Susan Yount
Editor, Arsenic Lobster Poetry Journal