Poet of the Month / January, 2000
Contents.
Introduction.
(Mario) ". . . Do you think the whole world
is a metaphor for something?" Neruda's mouth gaped and his robust chin seemed ready to drop right off his face. "Did I ask a stupid question?"
(Pablo) "No, my friend, no. You invented a metaphor."
(Mario) "But it doesn't count, 'cause it just came out by accident."
(Pablo) "All images are accidents, my son."
". . . There once was a poet named Dante who fell in love with a woman named Beatriz. It seems that Beatrizes provoke incommensurable loves."
--Mario and Pablo Neruda in the book The Postman by Antonio Skarmeta
Basis for the movie of the same name.
In 1995, a foreign film began to enlighten an international movie-going audience to the poetry of Pablo Neruda. Il Postino told the story of a young letter carrier who became fascinated with Neruda’s poetry. In the same way that the young man was isolated from extensive cultural access, we often find ourselves isolated from the writings of international authors. This one movie changed that situation and introduced a new group of followers to Neruda’s works.
Pablo Neruda, born Neftalí Reyes Basoalto in a small town in Chile on July 12, 1904, completed secondary school in 1920 in the southern Chilean city of Liceo de Temuco. It was in that year, after his writing on "Hombres," that he first signed his name Pablo Neruda which he adopted in memory of the Czechoslovakian poet Jan Neruda (1834-1891).
[not posted, 991107, Poetry_Gal]
Notes: The material presented here was submitted over several weeks beginning in November while we were featuring another poet. The general concensus of opinion is that the month of January was to be set aside for proper consideration of the poet and that works presented should be used at that time. Source and bibiliographic notes have not been presented.
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Night On the Island*
All night I have slept with you
next to the sea, on the island.
Wild and sweet you were between pleasure and sleep,
between fire and water. |
|
Perhaps very late
our dreams joined
at the top or at the bottom,
up above like branches moved by a common wind,
down below like red roots that touch. |
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Perhaps your dream
drifted from mine
and through the dark sea
was seeking me
as before,
when you did not yet exist,
when without sighting you
I sailed by your side,
and your eyes sought
what now-
bread, wine, love, and anger-
I head upon you
because you are the cup
that was waiting for the gifts of my life. |
|
I have slept with you
all night long while
the dark earth spins
with the living and the dead,
and on waking suddenly
in the midst of the shadow
my arm encircled your waist.
Neither or sleep
could separate us. |
|
I have slept with you
and on waking, your mouth,
come from your dream,
gave me the taste of earth,
of the depths of your life,
and I received your kiss
moistened by the dawn
as if it came to me
from the sea that surrounds us. |
Note: Work was originally presented on the CPN message board in Spanish, English, and French with a few notes describing the work as first published in volume The Captain's Verses.
[1843 and 1844, 991104, cendrilloner]
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Poetry
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.
|
|
I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating planations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe. |
|
And I, infinitesmal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke free on the open sky.
|
[1848, 991106, mgonzalez01]
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The Liberators
Here comes the tree, the tree
of the storm, the tree of the people.
Its heroes rise up from the earth
as leaves from the sap,
and the wind spangles the whispering
multitude's foliage,
until the seed falls
again from the bread to the earth.
|
|
Here comes the tree, the tree
nourished by naked corpses,
corpses scourged and wounded,
corpses with impossible faces,
impaled on spears,
reduced to dust in the bonfire,
decapitated by ax,
quartered by horse,
crucified in church. |
|
Here comes the tree, the tree
whose roots are alive,
it fed on martyrdom's nitrate,
its roots consumed blood,
and it extracted tears from the soil:
raised them through its branches,
dispersed them on its architecture.
They were invisible flowers-
sometimes, buried flowers,
other times they illuminated
its petals, like planets. |
|
And in the branches mankind
harvested
the hard corollas,
passed them from hand to hand
like magnolias or pomegranates,
and suddenly, they opened the earth,
gew up to the stars. |
|
This is the tree of the emancipated.
The earth tree, the cloooud tree,
The bread tree, the arrow tree,
the fist tree, the firee tree.
The stormy water of our nocturnal
epoch floods it,
but its mast balances
the arena of its might. |
|
At times, the branches broken
by wrath fall again,
and a foreboding ash
covers its ancient majesty:
just as it survived times past,
so too it rose from agony
until a secret hand,
countless arms, the people,
preserved the fragments,
hidd invariable trunks,
and their lips were the leaves
of the immense divided tree,
disseminated everywhere,
walking with its roots.
This is the tree, the tree
of the people, of all peoples
struggling for freedom. |
|
Look at its hair:
toouch its rennewed rays:
plunge your hands intto the factories
where its pulsing fruit
propagates its light each day.
Raise this earth in your hands,
partake of this splendor,
take your heart and your horse
and mount guard on tthe frontier,
at the limits of its leaves. |
|
Defend the detiny of its corollas,
share the hostile nights,
guarrd the cycle of the dawn,
breathe in the sstarry heights,
sustaining the tree, the tree
that grows in the middle of the earth.
|
[1891, 991118, cendrilloner]
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 |
Pablo Neruda
(1904-1973)
Links: |
The following URLs come from the listing of FAMILIAR AND FAVORITE POETS on our own website (http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Bistro/2298). We invite you to check them out and read more about Pablo Neruda (also, please let us know if you have any difficulties with these sites).
- Pablo Neruda Poemas y una pequeña biografia y algunos links. Site in Spanish Only. [http://vinkka.telefragged.com/neruda/]
- Three Poems of Pablo Neruda [http://www-personal.umich.edu/~agreene/Neruda.html]
- Life of Pablo Neruda Site in English. [http://www.uchile.cl/actividades_culturales/premios_nobel/neruda/Vida_Nerudaing.html] Site in Spanish:
Fundacion Neruda Chilean poet, winner of the Nobel Literature Prize. [http://www.uchile.cl/actividades_culturales/premios_nobel/neruda/pablo_neruda.html]
- Love Presents two poems by the poet Neruda. (click More Neruda link at the bottom). [http://www.boppin.com/neruda.html]
- Elementary Odes Several poems by the poet in English. [http://sunsite.dcc.uchile.cl/chile/misc/odas.html]
- Passions of Pablo Neruda Very comprehensive site in English, presenting much of the poet's work. [http://members.aol.com/KatharenaE/private/Pweek/Neruda/neruda.html]
- Il Postino (The Postman) Film review on 1995 Oscar winning Italian movie based loosely on the life of Pablo Neruda. [http://www.film.com/filma/reviews/quickrev.idc?REV=580]
- Nobel Prizes Excellent resource site on pages about the poet and/or present his work. [http://www.nobelprizes.com/nobel/literature/1971a.html]
- Regine's Pablo Neruda Site All English presentation of many of the poet's works. [http://www.ascusc.org/virtualgroup/nicole/regine/]
- Pablo Neruda - Poesie Some navigation in English, works presented in Spanish. In frames. [http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/6524/]
- Dedication to Pablo Neruda Presents two poems and exerpts from Neruda, but many resource links. [http://web.hudsonet.com/~amajo3/pn.html]
[Note: Many of the links presented here were offered by Poetry_Gal.]
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