Another batch of Neruda

If you haven't heard of Pablo Neruda then I am very sorry for you. This poet was from Chile and unlike many of the other poets I prefer was alive during the 20th century. I'll lift a bit here from his Wikipedia entry to save you the trouble of looking for the basics.

"Pablo Neruda (July 12, 1904 – September 23, 1973) was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean writer and politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. With his works translated into many languages, Pablo Neruda is considered one of the greatest and most influential poets of the 20th century. He chose his pen name in honour of the famous Czech poet Jan Neruda."

The article goes on to mention that he wrote many different styles of poems, but honestly I think his best work is in his love poems. Steamy like a South American jungle at midnight, I tell you. Here, I'll let you have a sample:

If You Forget Me I want you to know one thing. You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me. Well, now, if little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you little by little. If suddenly you forget me do not look for me, for I shall already have forgotten you. If you think it long and mad, the wind of banners that passes through my life, and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land. But if each day, each hour, you feel that you are destined for me with implacable sweetness, if each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me, ah my love, ah my own, in me all that fire is repeated, in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten, my love feeds on your love, beloved, and as long as you live it will be in your arms without leaving mine. Pablo Neruda If your toes didn't just curl a little then I say to you there is no romance in your soul! The idea of a love almost lost or remembered in a sweetly melancholy way is often in his works. He also loads his poems with taste and scent words, speaking to the senses poets often overlook. Many of his poems talk about the idea of a perfect woman but there are also poems that are just admitting total lust with someone. These are not poems to read out loud to your mother. Personally when I found out that Borders had a copy of The Poetry of Pablo Neruda for about $20 I had a small moment of "SQUEEE!" then ran over and bought it. I keep it handy for rainy days, or for dropping on small yappy type dogs since it's a fairly heavy book. Don't let the size fool you though, once you get into it you'll hate to let it end. Stavans, Ilan. Editor. The Poetry of Pablo Neruda New York, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2003