Neruda is perhaps most famous for his One Hundred Love Sonnets, especially XVII. He is also perhaps the greatest poet writing/having written in the Spanish language. Certainly his poetry transcends time - and this edition offers both the original Spanish and beautifully translated English versions. It's a great learning experience for people taking Spanish classes (like I am now). What more could you ask for?

Allow me to offer the following as an example:

Oda Al Libro (II): Ode to the Book (II)

Book,
beautiful
book,
minuscule forest,
leaf
after leaf,
your paper
smells
of the elements,
you are
matutinal and nocturnal,
vegetal,
oceanic,
in your ancient pages
bear hunters,
bonfires
near the Mississippi,
canoes
in the islands,
later
roads
and roads,
revelations,
insurgent
races,
Rimbaud like a wounded
fish bleeding
thumping in the mud,
and the beauty
of fellowship,
stone by stone
the human castle rises,
sorrows intertwined
with strength,
actions of solidarity,
clandestine
book
from pocket
to pocket,
hidden
lamp,
red star.

We
the wandering
poets
explored
the world,
at every door
life received us,
we took part
in the earthly struggle.
What was our victory?
A book,
a book full
of human touches,
of shirts,
a book
without loneliness, with men
and tools,
a book
is victory.
It lives and falls
like all fruit,
it doesn’t just have light,
it doesn’t just have
shadow,
it fades,
it sheds its leaves,
it gets lost
in the streets,
it tumbled to earth.
Morning-fresh
book of poetry,
again
hold
snow and moss
on your pages
so that footsteps
and eyes
may keep carving
trails:
once more
describe the world to us,
the springs
in the middle of the forest,
the high woodlands,
the polar
planets,
and man
on the roads,
on the new roads,
advancing
in the jungle,
in the water,
in the sky,
in the naked solitude of the sea,
man
discovering
the ultimate secrets,
man
returning
with a book,
the hunter back again
with a book,
the farmer
plowing
with a book.

Leí esto en inglés como en español. Puedo tratar a escribir estes notas del libro en español tambien, but that seems like a lot of work.

Honestly, my Spanish isn't at the level where I can read and appreciate Neruda in the original language yet. It's close enough, though where I can ask questions translators ask. Or seeing the difficulties they face. For instance:

“...haciendo un ruido de agrias aguas sobre las agrias aguas,” as “making a noise of sour waters over the sour waters”

The cadence. The doe of haciendo and doe of ruido. The agrias aguas as sour waters. Any translation will always feel... I don't know. Off.

And poets play. So, translators must be poets, too. Adjectival placement has linguistic rules that get tampered with when writing a poem. The poet makes intentional decisions. The translator must, by needs, as well.

A lot I liked. I even put one up as my quote of the day, a while back:

Ay, que lo que soy siga existiendo y cesando de existir,
y que mi obediencia de ordene se ordene con tales condiciones de hierro
el temblor de las muertas y de los nacimientos no conmueva
rotundo sitio que quiero reservar para mí eternamente.
Sea, pues, lo que soy, en alguna parte y en todo tiempo,
establecido y asegurado y ardiente testigo,
cuidadosamente destruyéndose y preservándose incesantemente,
evidentemente empeñado en su deber original.
~Pablo Neruda ~de Significa Sombras - 8-17-20

I didn’t write this on the board, but here’s the translation that was given in the book:

Oh, let what I am keep on existing and ceasing to exist,
and let my obedience align itself with such iron conditions
that the quaking of deaths and of births doesn’t shake
the deep place I want to reserve for myself eternally.

Let me, then, be what I am, wherever and in whatever weather,
rooted and certain and ardent witness,
carefully, unstoppably, destroying and saving himself,
openly engaged in his original obligation.

~Pablo Neruda ~from It Means Shadows - 8-17-20

(You can see that I've been reading it for a while. I'd check it out of the library, read a few or a bunch, return it. It was slow going, and mostly because I was pushing myself to try to not only read the original, but understand it as well. And think about those decisions that the translators made. But again, my Spanish is not there yet, so overall I failed at this, even though I succeeded in reading the book.)

I like it when you're quiet. (Page 7) Read it again.

Those Lives (171) - Read it again.

Towards the end of the poem,

If I remember anything in my life,
it was an afternoon in India, on the banks of a river.
They were burning a woman of flesh and bone
and I didn't know if what came from the sarcophagus
was soul or smoke,
until there was neither woman or fire
nor coffin nor ash. It was late,
and only the night, the water, the river, the darkness
lived on in that death.


Or here, in "El Pueblo" on page 162,

Creo que los que hicieron tantas cosas
deben ser duenos de todas las cosas.
Y los que hacen el pan deben comer!

Y deben tener luz los de la mina!

Basta ya de encadenados grises!

Basta de palidos desparecidos!


It's difficult to read that and remember who Pinochet is. To acknowledge that maybe the darkness is growing around us. Maybe. It certainly seems like it when one can openly see Proud Boys wearing shirts that say, "Pinochet Did Nothing Wrong."

But darkness and light always ebb and flow, right? Maybe the light is growing, too.

Not knowing a single thing about poetry I probably can't appreciate this to its fullest extent but this is simply beautiful. My personal favourite is 'leaning into the afternoon'.

Prophetic, powerful, mature, booming, affectionate

Loved learning about Neruda's context and major themes!!! So excited to read more of his work

Mark Eisner is a genius! This beautiful collection of poetry contains both English & Spanish versions of Neruda's poetry. It contains great breadth & depth at the core and encompasses the vastness of Neruda's work - love, politics, everyday life, landscape. This is a GREAT gift book!

An interesting tidbit - Eisner is also currently working on a film/documentary about Neruda - www.redpoppy.net for more info.

Buenos días
Este libro es un grupo de poemas escritas por el poeta chileno Pablo Neruda, uno de los poetas más relevantes del siglo XX
En breve, su palabras increíbles me han tocado el corazón, y me han llenado el alma con dicha y gozo
Estaba una experiencia fascinante leyendo unos trabajos preciosos de un gran poeta
———
Good morning
This book is a group of poems written by the chilean poet Pablo Neruda, one of the most relevant poets of the 20th century
Briefly, his incredible words touched my heart and filled my soul with happiness and joy
It was a fascinating experience reading some precious works of a great poet.
.

“De lo que fui no tengo sino estas marcas crueles, porque aquellos dolores confirman mi existencia.”
Que viva pablo neruda! que viva!

Interesting, though not quite my taste in poetry. Still glad I gave it a try!

Wonderful poetry selection by a world class poet.

Poems #1 and #20 (Cuerpo de Mujer and Puedo Escribir) have some of the most beautiful and powerful stanzas I've read. Of Neruda's work, the raw passion of these early poems intrigues me more than his later poetry. It may feel young, unrefined and overly-dramatic to some, but I am drawn to the intensity of this volume and can easily forgive any blemishes.

"Puedo Escribir Los Versos Mas Tristes Esta Noche." has always been one of my favorite poems, and it's as good a time as any to reread it. I've owned this book a while, but haven't reread it in years. I love this book because it's not simply a translation: it keeps each poem in Spanish and the next page contains (an always amazing) translation.

This seemed to me a great collection, and despite knowing very little Spanish, it was nice to have the original, to get a sense of the language and the rhythm. And what an interesting range, from the erotic to the political to the philosophical, with some combinations of all three.