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The Poetry of Pablo Neruda

pablo neruda ilan stavans

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The most comprehensive English-language collection of work ever by "the greatest poet of the twentieth century - in any language" - Gabriel García Márquez

"In his work a continent awakens to consciousness." So wrote the Swedish Academy in awarding the Nobel Prize to Pablo Neruda, the author of more than thirty-five books of poetry and one of Latin America's most revered writers, lionized during his lifetime as "the people's poet." This selection of Neruda's poetry, the most comprehensive single volume available in English, presents nearly six hundred poems. Scores of them are in new and sometimes multiple translations, and many accompanied by the Spanish original. In his introduction, Ilan Stavans situates Neruda in his native milieu as well as in a contemporary English-language one, and a group of new translations by leading poets testifies to Neruda's enduring, vibrant legacy among English-speaking writers and readers today.

1040 pages, Paperback

First published December 1,1951

This edition

Format
1040 pages, Paperback
Published
April 1, 2005 by Farrar Straus Giroux
ISBN
9780374529604
ASIN
0374529604
Language
English

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About the author

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pablo neruda

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Pablo Neruda, born Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto in 1904 in Parral, Chile, was a poet, diplomat, and politician, widely considered one of the most influential literary figures of the 20th century. From an early age, he showed a deep passion for poetry, publishing his first works as a teenager. He adopted the pen name Pablo Neruda to avoid disapproval from his father, who discouraged his literary ambitions. His breakthrough came with Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, 1924), a collection of deeply emotional and sensual poetry that gained international recognition and remains one of his most celebrated works.
Neruda's career took him beyond literature into diplomacy, a path that allowed him to travel extensively and engage with political movements around the world. Beginning in 1927, he served in various consular posts in Asia and later in Spain, where he witnessed the Spanish Civil War and became an outspoken advocate for the Republican cause. His experiences led him to embrace communism, a commitment that would shape much of his later poetry and political activism. His collection España en el corazón (Spain in Our Hearts, 1937) reflected his deep sorrow over the war and marked a shift toward politically engaged writing.
Returning to Chile, he was elected to the Senate in 1945 as a member of the Communist Party. However, his vocal opposition to the repressive policies of President Gabriel Gonzalez Videla led to his exile. During this period, he traveled through various countries, including Argentina, Mexico, and the Soviet Union, further cementing his status as a global literary and political figure. It was during these years that he wrote Canto General (1950), an epic work chronicling Latin American history and the struggles of its people.
Neruda's return to Chile in 1952 marked a new phase in his life, balancing political activity with a prolific literary output. He remained a staunch supporter of socialist ideals and later developed a close relationship with Salvador Allende, who appointed him as Chile's ambassador to France in 1970. The following year, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, recognized for the scope and impact of his poetry. His later years were marked by illness, and he died in 1973, just days after the military coup that overthrew Allende. His legacy endures, not only in his vast body of work but also in his influence on literature, political thought, and the cultural identity of Latin America.

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Rating(4.1 / 5.0, 100 votes)
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LangleyAsuka
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I have loved Pablo Neruda since I was fifteen years old and have fell in love with his beautiful expressions countless times. I believe his raw passion speaks to all of us on a universal level. It's so human and bare, it is his monument left to us. This is an amazing collection which begins with his early work to his retrospective years, it shows you this amazing evolution of his writing and how powerful it becomes.
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Lwhru
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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"And because love battles
not only in its burning agricultures
but also in the mouth of men and women,
I will finish off by taking the path away
to those who between my chest and your fragrance
want to interpose their obscure plant.

About me, nothing worse
they will tell you, my love,
than what I told you.

I lived in the prairies
before I got to know you
and I did not wait love but I was
laying in wait for and I jumped on the rose.

What more can they tell you?
I am neither good nor bad but a man,
and they will then associate the danger
of my life, which you know
and which with your passion you shared.

And good, this danger
is danger of love, of complete love
for all life,
for all lives,
and if this love brings us
the death and the prisons,
I am sure that your big eyes,
as when I kiss them,
will then close with pride,
into double pride, love,
with your pride and my pride.

But to my ears they will come before
to wear down the tour
of the sweet and hard love which binds us,
and they will say: “The one
you love,
is not a woman for you,
Why do you love her? I think
you could find one more beautiful,
more serious, more deep,
more other, you understand me, look how she’s light,
and what a head she has,
and look at how she dresses,
and etcetera and etcetera”.

And I in these lines say:
Like this I want you, love,
love, Like this I love you,
as you dress
and how your hair lifts up
and how your mouth smiles,
light as the water
of the spring upon the pure stones,
Like this I love you, beloved..."
-Pablo Neruda
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Flexicute
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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It was as if Neruda was using every word and piece of imagery for the first time, disintering it from some smouldering corner, cleaning and polishing until it shone. Breathtaking stuff.
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thuytruc1995
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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O Grande Oceano

Se os teus dons e das tuas destruições,
Oceano, as minhas mãos
pudesse destinar uma medida, uma fruta, um fermento,
escolheria o teu repouso distante, as linhas do teu aço,
a tua extensão vigiada pelo ar e pela noite,
e a energia do teu idioma branco
que destroça e derruba as suas colunas
na sua própria pureza demolida.
Não é a última onda com o seu salgado peso
a que tritura costas e produz
a paz de areia que rodeia o mundo:
é o central volume da força,
a potência estendida das águas,
a imóvel solidão cheia de vidas.
Tempo, talvez, ou taça acumulada
de todo movimento, unidade pura
que não selou a morte,verde víscera
da totalidade abrasadora.

Do braço submerso que levanta uma gota
não fica senão um beijo do sal.Dos corpos
do homem nas tuas margens uma húmida fragrância
de flor molhada permanece. A tua energia
parece resvalar sem ser gasta,
parece regressar ao seu repouso.

A onda que desprendes,
arco de identidade, pena despedaçada,
quando se despenhou foi só espuma,
e regressou para nascer sem se consumir.
Toda a tua força volta a ser origem.
Só entregas despojos triturados,
cascas que separou o teu carregamento,
o que expulsou a acção da tua abundância,
tudo o que deixou de ser cacho.

Sua estátua é estendida além das ondas.

Vivente e ordenada como o peito e o manto
de um só ser e suas respirações,
na matéria da luz içadas,
planícies levantadas pelas ondas,
formam a pele nua do planeta.
Enches o teu próprio ser com a tua substância.

Tornas repleta a curvatura do silêncio.

Com o teu sal e o teu mel treme a taça,
a cavidade universal da água,
e nada falta em ti como na cratera
destampada, no copo rude:
cumes vazios, cicatrizes, sinais
que vigiam o ar mutilado.
As tuas pétalas palpitam contra o mundo,
tremem os teus cereais submarinos,
as suaves algas penduram a sua ameaça,
navegam e pululam as escolas,
e apenas sobe ao fio das redes
o relâmpago morto da escama,
um milímetro ferido na distância
das tuas totalidades cristalinas.
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heychrisfox
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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"The sad wind goes on slaughtering butterflies..." The word "butterfly" is such a beautiful word in almost all the languages I know. In Spanish "mariposa", French "papillon", Danish "sommerfugl" and Swedish "fjäril". Only in Germany could they call it Schmetterling and then on top of it give the name to a fighter plane...
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SandyAxe78
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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note to self: maybe do not read Spanish love poetry when you're on your period. maybe don't do that, next time. okay?
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Palantire
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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My soul is empty carousel at sunset.
*
I copy out mountains, rivers, clouds.
I take my pen from my pocket. I note down
a bird in its rising

or a spider in its little silkworks.
Nothing else crosses my mind. I am air,
clear air, where the wheat is waving,
where a bird’s flight moves me, the uncertain
fall of a leaf, the globular
eye of a fish unmoving in the lake,
the statues sailing in the clouds,
the intricate variations of the rain.

Nothing else crosses my mind except
the transparency of summer. I sing only of the wind,
and history passes in its carriage,
collecting its shrouds and medals,
and passes, and all I feel is rivers.
I stay alone with the spring.
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ththth12
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Romance and War

I walked into Coalesce Bookstore in the quaint town of Morro Bay, CA and ended up in their poetry section. I saw Pablo Neruda’s name written on a book and pulled it off the shelf and began reading his poems on war, on politics. I put the book back on the shelf and began to walk out of the store. When I got to the door, I stopped, turned around and went back to read some more of his poems. I put it back on the shelf and began to walk away again. I stopped, grabbed the book and bought it. It was my introduction to Pablo Neruda, who won the Noble Prize for poetry.

Over the years I have picked up this book to read a few poems, but I never really read them all. I did it now, but I am finding that they were more meaningful when I read only a few at a time.

I began at the beginning of the book this time, with his love poems. It appeared to me that his love poems are as passionate as those of his on war and death. Either he is bursting with passionate love or in the deep despair of war. The love poems are filled with a touch of erotica. I felt that this man was more interested in making love to a woman than in knowing her soul. Perhaps, I should not judge, but at least I saw the beauty in each poem. I had never read them before, because I was only interested in his politics.

As to his poems on war, they were depressing to me as I kept reading one after another. He must have written about every invasion in the in South America and in Spain.

I wish to share one with you that contains both love and war:

“…I have not left you when I go away.
Now I am going to tell you:
My land will be yours,
I am going to conquer it,
Not just to give it to you,
But for everyone,
for my people…
You will come with me to fight
face to face
because your kisses live
like red banners,
and if I fall, not only
Will earth cover me
but also this great love
that you brought me
and that lived circulating
in my blood.
You will come with me,
at that hour I wait for you,
at that hour and at every hour
I wait for you…
because I am a soldier…
My love, I wait for you in the
harshest desert
and next to the flowing
lemon tree,
in every place where
there is life,
where spring is being born…”
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