the simple magnificence
of foliage,
the dark, damp network
of new roots,
the ancient and new dimensions
of another chestnut tree in the earth.

I’m fearful this translation project was a rubbish one. The book was a gift years ago in Miami, though the friend who gave it knew ten languages and I’m sure wasn’t concerned about fidelity.

I’ll pursue other editions do as to not fall firmly in the camp of Borges.

t I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

To enter Neruda's world is to enter a place where words speak the unspeakable, words of power, class, and love. Neruda strips his world down to the essentials, and then cooks a feast of words on top of that, creating a sense of luxury, magic, and sometimes despair. His perspective is an essential one for the twentieth century.

Someone asked me why I had so many different copies of Neruda and I answered because no one book ever has all the poems or the translations that I want. That's the tricky thing about Neruda. It's also the reason I like dual translation editions, so I can see the original right next to the English.

I love Neruda. Such a beautiful collection of poems, I'll be reading this one again and again.

Neruda is HOT!!! If you love poetry, this man wrote some seriously prolific material. The translations in this book are some of the best I've seen -- though some of them I had to stop and think for a while, but they are probably really in alignment with Neruda's original Spanish verses.

I give it like a 3.5-4. Definitely great but this was collection encompassed more of his work so some sections I really loved and others I was just getting through

Delicious, sensual poetry, in original Spanish and translation. The highest and lowest of love, the stars, the sea... I'd also recommend his "Twenty Poems of Love and a Song of Sadness" - this collection includes some but not all of those poems.

'It should be clear that no 200 bilingual pages selected from Neruda's work can properly be considered "definitive." What can be said is that the poems included in The Essential Neruda are well chosen as the rule. The decision (if there was a formal decision) to sample sparingly from the more strident political poems surely had more to do with the times than editorial predilection.

Still better chosen were the translators. They include Robert Hass, Stephen Mitchell and Alastair Reid. The group as a whole is drawn from among the finest in the field. With the exception of a single poem, "Walking Around," translated by Forrest Gander, their work is never less than solid and often exceptional.'

To read the full review-essay, click here>>> to go to my Virtual Grub Street, Too blog.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

4 stars.

This was a short taste of Pablo Neruda. I have been wanting to experience his poetry for a few months now, and I am impressed to say the least.

The specific to him, but wholly universal. It breathed the conflict within our history, regardless of where you call home. Neruda promotes that humanity can be heartbreaking and euphoric - not simply in romantic sense either.

I look forward to reading more of his work.

Neruda has a reputation for being a love poet so I expected a variety of cheesy poems with a few stanzas of poetic gold thrown in (since he must be famous for a reason).

Yeah, I was wrong. The poems cover a wide spread of human experiences. They are all really good.

Took me a long time to read because I had to really slow way down to digest the lines.