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The Poetry of Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda; Edited and with an Introduction by Ilan Stavans

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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ISBN10: 0374529604
ISBN13: 9780374529604

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1040 Pages

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Awarded Chile's Presidential Medal
A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book


In The Poetry of Pablo Neruda we have the most comprehensive English-language collection of his verse ever published.

"In his work a continent awakens to consciousness." So wrote the Swedish Academy in awarding the Nobel Prize in Literature to Neruda, author of more than thirty-five books of poetry and one of Latin America's most revered writers and political figures—a loyal member of the Communist party, a lifelong diplomat and onetime senator, a man lionized during much of his lifetime as "the people's poet."

Born Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto in Parral, Chile, Neruda adopted his pen name in fear of his family's disapproval (and in homage to the Czech poet Jan Neruda), yet by the age of twenty-five he was already famous for Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, the book which perhaps remains his most beloved. Over the next fifty years, a seemingly boundless metaphorical language linked this poet's romantic fantasies to a fierce, highly sensitive moral and political compass, as exemplified in books such as Canto General. The earlier stylistic experimentation of Residence on Earth gave way to the later ideological dissent of Songs of Protest, and Neruda increasingly became an adamant, self-styled champion of the dignity of ordinary men and women.

Edited and with an introduction by the renowned scholar, author, and translator Ilan Stavans, The Poetry of Pablo Neruda is the largest, most inclusive single-volume collection of this prolific poet's work in English. Here, the finest translations of nearly six hundred of his poems are collected—classic renderings alongside specially commissioned new translations—all of which attest to Neruda's still-resounding presence in American letters.

Reviews

Praise for The Poetry of Pablo Neruda

"Not since Whitman has a poet of genius embraced a whole continent, as Neruda has his, or spoken so directly to the nonpoets among his readers."—Selden Rodman

"Ambitious . . . Meticulously edited . . . [This] selection targets the serious reader . . . Stavans deserves high praise for the volume he has assembled. Thanks to his judicious selections, readers can now appreciate the fabulous evolution of Neruda's career without repetition or any posthumous touching up. Inside [this book] we find a funhouse mirror of Neruda's personas. There is indeed that melancholy wanderer, mooning at the heavens. But there is also Neruda the ardent surrealist, and there's Neruda the antiwar activist and Neruda the fervent nationalist. In the late 1940s, we find Neruda the lonely exile, and, finally, toward the end of his long career, there is Neruda the organic, earth-toned metaphysical seeker."—John Freeman, San Francisco Chronicle

"The Poetry of Pablo Neruda advertises itself as 'the most comprehensive single volume available in English'—and it certainly is."—Charles Simic, The New York Review of Books

"The greatest poet of the twentieth century—in any language."—Gabriel Garcia Marquez

"[This book provides] an opportunity to reflect on the poet's achievement and his canonical position."—Christopher Winks, The Harvard Review

"This hefty anthology offers 600 chronologically arranged poems from the work of Chilean Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda, perhaps the most extensively translated poet in the world. Rejecting the abstract and evasive poetry of the 19th century, Neruda was inspired by humble things like socks and the smell of firewood and wrote fiercely of social injustice, celebrating heroes such as Fray Bartolome de las Casas and Abraham Lincoln and damning oppressors (e.g., 'General Franco in Hell'). Editor Stavans (who teaches Latin American studies at Amherst College) draws from a pool of 36 translators, including Angel Flores (who first translated Neruda into English in 1944), Robert Bly, John Felstiner, Galway Kinnell, Nathaniel Tarn, Alastair Reid, James Wright, and Clark Zlotchew. Consistent with Neruda's enthusiasm for multiple translations of his poems, Stavans offers more than one version of some poems, although the Spanish originals are only occasionally provided. If, as Stavans believes, 30 years after his death the time is right for a reappraisal of Neruda, then this volume is just what's needed to jump-start the process. Highly recommended for all libraries."—Library Journal


Table of Contents

Introduction

from Book of Twilight/
Crepusculario (1920-1923)

FARWELL AND SOBS
LOVE

MARURI'S TWILIGHTS

If God Is in My Verse
My Soul

from TWENTY LOVE POEMS AND A SONG OF DESPAIR/
VEINTE POEMAS DE AMOR Y UNA CANCIÓN DESESPERADA (1923-1924)

TWENTY LOVE POEMS

I. Body of Woman
II. The Light Wraps You
IX. Drunk with Pines
X. Hemos perdido aun
We Have Lost Even
XII. Your Breast Is Enough
XIII. I Have Gone Marking
XIV. Every Day You Play
XV. Me gustas cuando callas
I Like for You to Be Still
XVII. Thinking, Tangling Shadows
XVIII. Here I Love You
XX. Tonight I Can Write

LA CANCIÓN DESESPERADA
THE SONG OF DESPAIR

from RESIDENCE ON EARTH/
RESIDENCÍA EN LA TIERRA (1925-1945)

RESIDENCE I

I.
Dead Gallop
Alliance (Sonata)
The Dawn's Debility
Unity
Joachim's Absence
Fantasma
Phantom
Slow Lament
We Together
Tyranny
Serenade
Ars Poetica
Ars Poetica
Sonata and Destructions
II.
La noche del soldado
The Night of the Soldier
Contradicted Communications
The Young Monarch
III.
Single Gentleman
The Ghost of the Cargo Boat
The Widower's Tango
IV.
It Means Shadows

RESIDENCE II

I.
One Day Stands Out
Sólo la muerte
Only Death
II.
Walking Around
Walking Around
Walking Around
Disaction
The Destroyed Street
Melancholy in the Families
f0Maternity
III.
Ode with a Lament
Material nupcial
Nuptial Substance
Sexual Water
V.
Oda a Federico García Lorca
Ode to Federico García Lorca
Ode to Federico García Lorca
The Disinterred One
VI.
The Clock Fallen into the Sea
Autumn Returns
There Is No Oblivion (Sonata)

RESIDENCE III

I.
The Drowned Woman of the Sky
Waltz
Brussels
Naciendo en los bosques
Born in the Woods
II: Furies and Sorrows
III: Meeting Under New Flags
IV: Spain in Our Heart
Invocation
Bombardment/Curse
Spain Poor Through the Fault of the Rich
Tradition
Madrid (1936)
Song for the Mothers of Slain Militiamen
Song to the Mothers of Dead Loyalists
What Spain Was Like
Batalla del Río Jarama
Battle of the Jarama River
Almería
General Franco in Hell
Triumph
Landscape After a Battle
Madrid (1937)
Solar Ode to the Army of the People
V.
Canto a Stalingrado
Song to Stalingrad
Tina Modotti ha muerto
Tina Modotti Is Dead
Seventh of November: Ode to a Day of Victories
Song on the Death and Resurrection of Luis Companys
Song to the Red Army on Its Arrival at the Gates of Prussia


from CANTO GENERAL/
CANTO GENERAL (1938-1949)

I: A LAMP ON EARTH

I.. Amor America (1400)
Vegetation
III. The Birds Arrive
IV. Los ríos acuden
The Rivers Come Forth
Orinoco
Amazon
V. Minerals
VI. Man

II: THE HEIGHTS OF MACCHU PICCHU

I. From Air to Air
III. El ser como el maíz
Being like Maize
V. It Was Not You
VIII. Come Up with Me, American Love
IX. Interstellar Eagle
X. Stone Within Stone
XII. Sube a nacer
Arise to Birth

III. THE CONQUISTADORS

I. They Come Through the Islands (1493)
III. Cortés
V. Cholula
VI. s26Alvarado
VII. Guatemala
IX. The Head on the Spear
X. Homage to Balboa
XV. La línea colorada
The Red Line
XVI. Elegy
XX. Land and Man Unite
XXII. Ercilla

IV: THE LIBERATORS

I. Cuauhtemoc (1520)
II. Fray Bartolomé de las Casas
Brother Bartolome de Las Casas
III. Advancing in the Lands of Chile
VIII. Lautaro (1550)
XI. Lautaro Against the Centaur (1554)
XVII. Commoners from Socorro (1781)
XVIII. Tupac Amaru (1781)
XIX. Insurgent America (1800)
XXI. San Martin (1810)
XXVII. Guayaquil (1822)
XXXVII. Sandino (1926)
XLII. The Tyrants Again
XLIII. Llegará el día
The Day Will Come

V: THE SAND BETRAYED

Perhaps, perhaps oblivion . . .
I.
The Hangmen
Doctor Francia
Rosas (1829-1849)
Estrada
Machado
Martínez (1932)
II.
The Oligarchies
Election in Chimborongo (1947)
Diplomats (1948)
The Bordellos
Standard Oil Co.
La United Fruit Co.
United Fruit Co.
The Beggars
The Indians
The Judges
IV.
Chronicle of 1948 (America)
Paraguay
Cuba
The Traitor
Acuso
I Accuse
The Victorious People

VI: AMERICA, I DO NOT INVOKE YOUR NAME IN VAIN

I. From Above (1942)
II. An Assassin Sleeps
III. On the Coast
IV. Winter in the South, on Horseback
V. Los crímenes
Crimes
VI. Youth
VII. Climates
VIII. Varadero en Cuba
Varadero in Cuba
XI. Hunger in the South
XIII. A Rose
XIV. Life and Death of a Butterfly
XV. The Man Buried in the Pampa
XVIII. America
XIX. America, I Do Not Invoke Your Name in Vain

VII: CANTO GENERAL OF CHILE

Eternity
II. I Want to Return to the South (1941)
V. Saddlery
Pottery Shop
VII. Atacama
X. Untilled Zones
XII. Botánica
Botany
XV. Rider in the Rain
XVI. Chile's Seas

VIII: THE EARTH'S NAME IS JUAN

I. Cristóbal Miranda
(Shoveler, Tocopilla)
VII. Antonio Bernales
(Fisherman, Colombia)
XII. Maestro Huerta
(from the "La Despreciada" Mine, Antofagasta)
XVI. Catastrophe in Sewell
XVII. The Earth's Name Is Juan

IX: LET THE WOODCUTTER AWAKEN

III. Beyond Your Lands, America

X: THE FUGITIVE (1948)

I
IV
X
XII
XIII

XI: THE FLOWERS OF PUNITAQUI

II. Brother Pablo
VII. Gold
X. El poeta
The Poet
XI. Death in the World
XII. Mankind

Reviews from Goodreads

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Pablo Neruda's "Ode to the Watermelon", read by Ilan Stavans (editor, All The Odes)

This selection of Neruda's poetry, the most comprehensive single volume available in English, presents nearly six hundred poems, scores of them in new and sometimes multiple translations, and many accompanied by the Spanish original. In his introduction, Ilan Stavans situates Neruda in his native milieu as well as in a contemporary English-language one, and a group of new translations by leading poets testifies to Neruda's enduring, vibrant legacy among English-speaking writers and readers today.

About the author

Pablo Neruda; Edited and with an Introduction by Ilan Stavans

Pablo Neruda (1904-73), one of the renowned poets of the twentieth century, was born in Farral, Chile. He shared the World Peace Prize with Paul Robeson and Pablo Picasso in 1950, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971. His books include Residence on Earth, Canto General, Extravagaria, and Isla Negra.