some of the translations weren't so great.

It wasn't until I had finished reading this collection that I realised that there's a movie which these poems centred in. I can't say that the poems alone moved me, but after having seen the movie, I find them much more understandable and endearing. I'm not sure whether this has to do with the fact that I read them in English or the fact that I'm more a visual person.

The first book of poems that I was able to finish because I liked it. This introduced me to the works of Pablo Neruda. Few years after I read this, my brother lent me the soundtrack of "Il Postino". I liked it so I bought my own copy that I still listen to every once in a while.

Another great collection from my favourite poet.

Sea to rising Seas; order to disorder- Only happen if we solve nuestro problema, our greatest problem. El Postino....After Allende, death....

I loved the use of these poems in The Postman. My dear friend Sarah gave me this collection on my 18th birthday. I re-read them just the other day and am still awed by the beauty of Tonight I Can Write.

Soneto XVII, one of my favorite poems since I was a teenager.

Love: Ten Poems by Pablo Neruda is obviously a short collection but an interesting one, if only for the simple fact that the selection of poems has been dictated by cinematic choice rather than a theme or themes that the poet or editor wanted to explore.
The movie these marvellous poems feature in is The Postman (not the Kevin Costner movie) but Il Positano, an Italian film released in 1994 that I’ve decided (after reading the poems) that I must see. And whose main star Massimo Troisi postponed heart surgery to complete the film and then tragically died a day afterwards.
This is a bilingual edition that includes mention of who translated each poem. There are a total of six translators. W.S. Merwin who translated the bulk of the poems and is a wonderful poet himself. See my review of Present Company here on Goodreads. Alistair Reid who translated two and Stephen Tapscott, Donald D Walsh, Nathaniel Tarn and Ken Krobbenhoft with one each. Nine of the ten poems are hallmark Neruda, eloquent, lyrical and for me anyway visually evocative. The tenth contains the very awkard word “lengthily” and is just not up to the standard of the others. I’m blaming the translation/translator.
Favourites are - I Like For You To Be Still - “And you hear me from far away, and my voice does not reach you:
Let me come to be still in your silence.”
The mesmerising Poetry -
“...but from a street I was summoned
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.”

And Leaning into the Afternoons...
“Leaning into the afternoons I cast my sad nets
towards your oceanic eyes.”

I am in awe. An excellent introduction to Neruda’s work. Highly recommended.

I found this book but I had forgotten buying it. So I read it as if for the first time. Neruda's poems still have that impact.

I don't like Neruda at all. I don't get it.

Beautiful, heart wrenching, songs of love and loss.

This book, which contains ten poems by Pablo Neruda, is used in the film Il Postino (The Postman) and read by several Hollywood celebrities on its soundtrack. I remember listening to it with my best friend during our college days and gushing over how brilliantly Neruda had penned poems about passionate love.

My favorite poem of his will always be ”Tonight I Can Write”, which is included in this collection, although this verse from “Poetry” (also in this book) also often gets to me every time I come across it:

And it was at that age ... Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

A lovely quick read on a sultry afternoon.