More than 250 quatrains of love and loss, the texts to those inimitable flamenco performances - these are the songs that are wailed by those keening male voices, as the red-and-black-clad women dancers stamp, pirouette and fire castanet rhythms at machine-gun pace. Not high art certainly, but a part of deeper fabric of the real Spain, and a powerful influence on poets such Lorca.

Translated by: Michael Smith, Luis Ingelmo