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Neruda. The name could be synonymous with soul. Don’t think he’s just great at love poems. He is, but give him any subject and he’ll treat it like a tender lover. I adore him, and reading this every day for two months, learned that there is no such thing as too much Neruda.
This volume incorporates multiple translators, sometimes giving two translations of the same poem, and I found it fascinating how different the result could be. Of course I liked some more than others. But every one of these, amazingly, had something to say to me.
A much more in-depth biography than I expected appears at the end, arranged into sections by Neruda’s poetry collections. It illuminates what was going on in his life during the writings, and makes me want to start over at the beginning and read the biography and the poetry together. That will be the plan for my next of many re-reads.
I’ve quoted enough while I was reading in my updates, but I can’t resist just a few more.
I think my favorite, one of the most powerful poems ever written, was "The Earth’s Name is Juan," which begins:
“Juan followed upon the liberators
working, fishing and fighting,
in his carpentry work or in his damp mine.
His hands have plowed the earth and measured the roads.
His bones are everywhere.
But he’s alive. He returned from the earth. He was born.
He was born again like an eternal plant.
All the impure night tried to submerge him
and today he affirms his indomitable lips in the dawn.
They bound him, and he’s now a determined soldier.
They wounded him, and he’s still hearty as an apple.
They cut off his hands and today he pounds with them.
They buried him, and he sings along with us.”
No wait. That’s the most powerful, but I think my favorite is "My Dog Has Died," because these lines!
“He already left with his coat,
his bad manners, his cold nose.
And I, a materialist who does not believe
in the starry heaven promised
to a human being
for this dog and for every dog
I believe in heaven, yes, I believe in a heaven
that I will never enter, but he waits for me
Wagging his big fan of a tail
so I, soon to arrive, will feel welcomed.”
This is how it went for me, poem after poem, “This one! No, this one!” as he pummeled my heart to little pieces and then swept up the bits to make another beautiful creation.
Finally, this, from “I Ask for Silence”
“I have lived so much that someday
they will have to forget me forcibly,
rubbing me off the blackboard
My heart was inexhaustible.”
Truer words ...
This volume incorporates multiple translators, sometimes giving two translations of the same poem, and I found it fascinating how different the result could be. Of course I liked some more than others. But every one of these, amazingly, had something to say to me.
A much more in-depth biography than I expected appears at the end, arranged into sections by Neruda’s poetry collections. It illuminates what was going on in his life during the writings, and makes me want to start over at the beginning and read the biography and the poetry together. That will be the plan for my next of many re-reads.
I’ve quoted enough while I was reading in my updates, but I can’t resist just a few more.
I think my favorite, one of the most powerful poems ever written, was "The Earth’s Name is Juan," which begins:
“Juan followed upon the liberators
working, fishing and fighting,
in his carpentry work or in his damp mine.
His hands have plowed the earth and measured the roads.
His bones are everywhere.
But he’s alive. He returned from the earth. He was born.
He was born again like an eternal plant.
All the impure night tried to submerge him
and today he affirms his indomitable lips in the dawn.
They bound him, and he’s now a determined soldier.
They wounded him, and he’s still hearty as an apple.
They cut off his hands and today he pounds with them.
They buried him, and he sings along with us.”
No wait. That’s the most powerful, but I think my favorite is "My Dog Has Died," because these lines!
“He already left with his coat,
his bad manners, his cold nose.
And I, a materialist who does not believe
in the starry heaven promised
to a human being
for this dog and for every dog
I believe in heaven, yes, I believe in a heaven
that I will never enter, but he waits for me
Wagging his big fan of a tail
so I, soon to arrive, will feel welcomed.”
This is how it went for me, poem after poem, “This one! No, this one!” as he pummeled my heart to little pieces and then swept up the bits to make another beautiful creation.
Finally, this, from “I Ask for Silence”
“I have lived so much that someday
they will have to forget me forcibly,
rubbing me off the blackboard
My heart was inexhaustible.”
Truer words ...
