Mañana

XXV
Before loving you, love, nothing was mine:
I hesitated on the streets and among things:
Nothing mattered nor had a name:
The world belonged to the air that waited.

Mediodía

XL
The silence was green, the light was wet,
The month of June trembled like a butterfly
And in the southern realm, from the sea and the stones,
Matilde, you crossed noon.

Tarde

LXVI
I don't want you except because I want you
And from wanting you I come to not wanting you
And from waiting for you when I don't wait for you
My heart passes from cold to fire.

Noche

XCV
Who loved like us? Let's look for
The ancient ashes of the burned heart
And there let our kisses fall one by one
Until the disabled flower revives.

The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904 - 1971) wrote “estos mal llamados” (these badly called) sonnets to Matilde Urrutia in 1959. They had met in 1946 and over the years became lovers. Neruda built a house for her in Santiago and she became his third wife in 1966.

Divided into the four parts of the day, Neruda extols his love, the good and bad, the longing, the ups and downs, the storms and the calm. His words are beautiful and fine, painting a vivid picture of their passionate and complex relationship. It's as if he is sharing the most intimate details of his heart with the world.

For all that it's worth, all I can say is that the man sure loved his lover deeply. His sonnets are a testament to the power of love and the ability of words to capture its essence. They have endured through the years, touching the hearts of countless readers and inspiring them to believe in the magic of love.

I refuse to rate the book of an admitted rapist.

The collection is not bad although rather redundant. Some poems are very beautiful but the constant reuse of the same themes slightly tarnishes the whole. And Neruda disgusts me.

It is truly unacceptable to give any form of recognition or praise to the work of someone who has committed such a heinous act.

While the literary merit of the poems may have some aspects that are worthy of appreciation, the fact that they come from the pen of a rapist overshadows all else.

We cannot separate the art from the artist in this case.

The actions of the author have a profound impact on how we view and evaluate their work.

By refusing to rate this book, I am making a statement that I will not support or condone the actions of a criminal, no matter how talented they may be in the field of literature.

Neruda's works are truly a treasure trove of literary masterpieces. One of his most beautiful books ever is a testament to his extraordinary talent. I first began to read poetry precisely because of Neruda, and I can firmly confirm that his verses are pure art. There is an abundance of beauty within these lines, an immensity that takes one's breath away. Each word seems to be carefully chosen and arranged, creating a vivid and enchanting world. The emotions and ideas expressed in his poetry are so profound and universal that they can touch the hearts of readers from all walks of life. Whether it is love, nature, or the human condition, Neruda has a unique way of capturing the essence and presenting it in a way that is both accessible and profound. His poetry is not only a joy to read but also a source of inspiration and enlightenment.

It was my very first attempt to read a book in Spanish, a language that I am not particularly proficient in.

My initial foray into this endeavor was not overly successful. The main reason being that poetry, even in one's native language, can be quite challenging to understand. In the case of Spanish poetry, it presented an even greater hurdle for me.

However, I am not one to give up easily. I have decided that in the future, I will start with easier books in Spanish. This way, I can gradually build up my comprehension skills and become more confident in reading the language. I believe that with consistent practice and determination, I will be able to improve my ability to understand and enjoy Spanish literature.

Although this first attempt was not a complete success, it has taught me valuable lessons and has motivated me to continue my journey of learning Spanish.

This Neruda is wonderful.

Although the translation of the poems loses the linguistic mystery that flows within them, yet in Pablo Neruda's poems there is something more than just the language, perhaps the truth and the music.

The fortieth and fourth poem:

Known to me that I do not love you and I love you

Because the being of life is double like a woman

Because speech is the wing of silence

And because in the fire there is a spark of cold.

I love you and I do not love you, as if before my eyes

Are the keys of happiness

And a desperate fate

And a fate full of anxiety.

I do not love you... to begin to love you

To be able to start the infinity anew

But I will never stop loving you

My love is a heart for your love

Therefore I love you when I do not love you

And therefore I love you when I love you

==============

The thirty-first poem:

With all the caves of the south

And with the thyme of the wild meadow

O little queen of my bones, I address you

And may you always have this crown

Born of the earth, and of the leaves of incense

==============

No one will know that kindness alone

Made something after something hard pearls like cities

And that blood opened up desolate expenses

Without her kingdom playing on the snow

==============

Therefore, my beloved, your tenderness, your sweetness

Your light and your torments are the inheritance

The living, the droppings of the holy rain, the gifts of nature

I think that tasting poems like these by their mother tongue is a sufficient reason alone to learn languages.

The author's way with words was truly beautiful.

I didn't care for every poem, but that was not my expectation.

Sometimes, all you need is to find the right one, and there were indeed various suitable ones.

However, in some of my favorite poems, the English translation left something to be desired.

It simply didn't always translate well.

Whether it was due to the translator or the language difference, I can't quite say for sure.

Perhaps it was just that I personally would have expressed it in a different way.

But that's the nature of language, you know.

It encompasses your background, your culture, sayings, geography, habits, and meanings that go beyond simple words.

Sometimes, you just can't translate all of that when simply changing a sentence from Spanish to English.

It's a complex and nuanced process that requires a deep understanding of both languages and their cultural contexts.

Despite the limitations of translation, I still appreciate the effort that goes into bringing these beautiful poems to a wider audience.

Matilda, a name from wine. [

] Flood me with your pyrrhic mouth,

Search for me if you want with your nocturnal eyes,

but let me sail and sleep in your name.

"If you didn't happen to have eyes" [

] Without going far I see everything:

all that lives I see in your life.

"I don't love you as if you were a rose of salt" I don't love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,

a sieve of cinnamon that the fire fills:

I love you as certain dark things are loved,

secretly, between the soul and the shadow.

I love you as a plant that doesn't bloom

but carries within itself the light of flowers,

and lives from your dark love in my body

the aroma that rose clenched from the earth.

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

I love you straightforwardly, without problems or pride:

I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving

except this, in which there is no I or you,

where your hand upon my chest is my hand,

where when I fall asleep your eyes close too.

"How many times have I loved you" [

] I loved you without knowing it and wandered in your memory.

"Before I knew you" Before I knew you nothing was mine:

everything was rubbish on the streets:

nothing had value or a name:

the world hoped only in the air. [

] Everything was bubbles, dead and empty,

fallen, scattered and abandoned,

everything was foreign and strange,

everything was no one's and everything was of others,

as if your poverty and your beauty

had filled autumn with gifts.

"You'll know how I don't love you" [

] My love has two lives to love you.

That's why not only when I love you

but I love you also when I don't love you.

"Don't leave me even for a day" Don't leave me even for a day, because why,

how can I say it, the day is so long for me,

and I'll wait for you like at those stations

where sleep has taken the trains in some corner.

"I don't want you except because I want you" I don't want you except because I want you,

but from wanting to not wanting I fall

and from the artery, when I don't wait for you,

I pass from the frozen to the burning.

I want you only because I want you,

I hate you but I rush towards your love,

and it's the measure of my innocent love

like a blind man who loves not to see you.

The hard-hearted January light

will silence my heart this year,

opening my secret chest.

Alone in this story I die

and I die from love since I want you,

I want you, love, as blood and as the end.

"Not being is like being without you" [

] and since then I am only because you are,

and since then you are and I am, we are the two of us,

and I will be, you will be, we will be from love.

"If I die, you live" [

] There is a house so transparent the absence

that I, even without life, will see you live

and I will die again if I see you suffer.

Releitura em 2024

Neruda understood that the love for Matilde did not end, it was not finite in Matilde nor in him. Through the love for her, he wrote about love as an indestructible and eternal force.

It is a love poem with beautiful images. Images of strength, of lightness, movement, and calmness. The recurrence of bread, of solid forms, and of wheat.

This poem seems to capture the essence of their love, which was not just a passing fancy but something deep and abiding. Neruda's use of vivid imagery helps to bring the emotions and the relationship to life on the page.

Perhaps through this poem, we can catch a glimpse of the love that Neruda and Matilde shared, a love that was as powerful as it was beautiful.

So this was two compilations in one: 100 Love Sonnets and 20 Love Poems and a song of despair.

I liked the love sonnets to a certain extent. The author employed a plethora of metaphors related to nature and food. Some of them truly touched my emotions, but unfortunately, most of them were far too abstract for my mind to fully understand.

However, I really adored the 20 love poems and the song of despair. These were much more direct when it came to expressing feelings, rather than attempting to intricately weave metaphors about love and sex. It was very well done!

The simplicity and honesty in these works made them resonate deeply with me. They allowed me to connect with the emotions on a more personal level, without getting lost in the complexity of overly elaborate metaphors.

In conclusion, while the 100 Love Sonnets had their moments, it was the 20 Love Poems and the song of despair that truly stole my heart.

" Σε θέλω γιατί μόνο εσένα θέλω,

I want you because only you I want.

σε μισώ μα γι' αγάπη σου προσπέφτω,

I hate you but I rush towards you because of your love.

κι ειν' της αθώας αγάπης μου το μέτρο

And it is the measure of my innocent love.

σαν τυφλός που αγαπά για να μη σε βλέπω."

Like a blind man who loves not to see you."

"Μόνος στην ιστορία αυτή πεθαίνω

"Alone in this story I die

και πεθαίνω απ' αγάπη αφού σε θέλω,

and I die from love since I want you,

σε θέλω, αγάπη, ώς το αίμα και ώς το τέλος"

I want you, love, like blood and like the end."

" Καμιά άλλη δε θα κοιμηθεί με τα όνειρα μου, αγάπη.

"No other will sleep with my dreams, love.

Θα πλέεις, θα πλέουμε αντάμα μες στα νερά του χρόνου.

You will swim, we will swim together in the waters of time.

Καμιά δε θ' αρμενίσει στον ίσκιο πια μαζί μου,

No one will harm me in the shadow anymore with me,

μόνο εσύ πανταζώντανη, πάντα ήλιος και φεγγάρι."

only you, all-encompassing, always sun and moon."

Αφιερωμένο.

Dedicated.

Έμπνευση. Ταύτιση.

Inspiration. Identification.

Super simply put, Neruda is word sex.

I am not a die-hard lover of love poems. However, these sonnets are so blatantly and nakedly the poems of a lover that in this particular instance, I am completely head over heels.

In all seriousness, these sonnets are brilliant in translation. But I especially adored the original Spanish. It was truly the work at its most lyrically organic awesomeness. (And my Spanish is, at best, rather wobbly.)

And organic is really the only word I would use to describe these sonnets. Neruda himself, perhaps self-deprecatingly (but at the same time, un-self-consciously razor-accurate), described his poems relative to the rest of the genre as being made out of wood, as opposed to the "silver, crystal, or cannonfire" of others.

And when it comes to love, we know it's all about the wood (ok, that was a horrible pun, sorry to the upstanding Goodreads community).

But seriously, the way the organic, natural world emerges as characters that dance throughout these poems - for example, scorched rocks, dove-shaped clay toys metaphorically masquerading as the human heart, breadmaking - it's so tactile. Instead of being just an intellectual exercise in the optical recognition of printed ideas as felt memories, which most poems might even hope to achieve, with Neruda and these sonnets, you can practically taste it. It's a consuming love that even deserves to be written about, and these sonnets just devoured me.

It was one of those days. The kids seemed to take over the bathroom, creating a chaotic mess. The cat, for some reason, decided to vomit right on my carpet, adding to the unpleasantness. And as if that wasn't enough, a toothbrush got lodged down the drain. It was truly one of those days. It was definitely not a day to start reading a Sarah Vowell book about the beginnings of Hawaii. No, not today. Instead, I grabbed the bottle of Sangria and sat down with this.

Again, I have to express my gratitude to Goodreads for introducing me to Bells (a big shout out to Bells! Woot! Woot!). Bells introduced me to Pablo. Just imagine living my whole life without knowing Pablo!! The horror!

There is a reason why middle-aged women are attracted to abstinent shiny vampires. We are tired. We have lost our inspiration and cling to the idea of everlasting love like Spanx. We are who we are. I'll admit that I was duped by that Edward. With all his “Do you truly believe that you care more for me than I do for you?” nonsense. Yes, we are flawed. We want to hear that kind of stuff. We also want to hear that you loved Duran Duran and that Say Anything was your favorite movie of all time. Are we clear? Good.

Where was I? Oh, right, pouring another glass of Sangria and talking about Pablo. Okay, Pablo with his baldness and his Alfred Hitchcockian body. Pablo would easily take Edward down. No stake needed, my friend.

Oh, my dearest, I could not love you so!
But when I hold you I hold everything that is---
Sand, time, the tree of the rain,

Everything is alive so that I can be alive
Without moving I can see it all
In your life I see everything that lives.

Hellz to the Yeah! That's the good stuff! Whoo!! Pablo Pablo he's our man! Well, okay, he's Matilda Uruttia's man, but eh… semantics. Just imagine! 100 love sonnets! For one woman! Swoon. And it's not like you have to search hard for lines like the one above. It's on every single page. I just fall deeper and deeper in love with his words. I drink more Sangria and my eyes start to water.

\\"Yes, you are exactly my brand of heroin.\\"

Oh, Eddie… you're so silly. Just give it up and go away.

This is part of Pablo's dedication: \\"When I set this task for myself, I knew very well that down the right sides of sonnets, with elegant discriminating taste, poets of all times have arranged rhymes that sound like silver, or crystal, or cannon fire. But--with great humility--I made these sonnets out of wood: I gave them the sound of that opaque pure substance, and this is how they should reach your ears. … Now that I have declared the foundations of my life, I surrender this century to you: wooden sonnets that rise only because you gave them life.”

Can you imagine living with that kind of love? We all crave that crazy new found love feeling, right? Let's be honest. There's nothing like that rush. But imagine a full grown, fleshed out, downright dedication of life. Suddenly, it's not just about the adrenaline, it's about the stamina.

Pablo divides his sonnets into four sections: Morning, Afternoon, Evening, and Night. And isn't that just wonderful? The words are so powerful that you feel each moment, you age with him, you become his day. Lucky, lucky woman, that Matilda.

Morning:

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

Afternoon:

So that I am like a scorched rock
That suddenly sings when you are near, because it drinks
The water you carry from the forest, in your voice

Evening:

I need the light of your energy,
I looked around, devouring hope.
I watched the void without you that is like a house,
Nothing left but tragic windows.

Night:

No one else, Love, will sleep in my dreams, you will go,
We will go together, over the waters of time.
No one else will travel through the shadows with me,
Only you, evergreen, ever sun, ever moon.

Your hands have already opened their delicate fists
And let their soft drifting signs drop away;
Your eyes closed like two gray wings, and I move

After, following the folding water you carry, that carries
Me away. The night, the word, the wind spin out their destiny.
Without you, I am your dream, only that, and that is all.

It's really hard to write a review of Pablo without completely quoting him. You have to experience him for yourself. I feel like I'm cheating with this review. I will end with just this: I hope everyone finds their Pablo… I hope everyone opens their eyes and sees their Pablo.