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Overview
"Laughter is the language of the soul," Pablo Neruda said. Among the most lasting voices of the most tumultuous (in his own words, "the saddest") century, a witness and a chronicler of its most decisive events, he is the author of more than thirty-five books of poetry and one of Latin America's most revered writers, the emblem of the engaged poet, an artist whose heart, always with the people, is literally consumed by passion. His work, oscillating from epic meditations on politics and history to intimate reflections on animals, food, and everyday objects, is filled with humor and affection.
This bilingual selection of more than fifty of Neruda's best poems, edited and with an introduction by the distinguished Latin American scholar Ilan Stavans and brilliantly translated by an array of well-known poets, also includes some poems previously unavailable in English. I Explain a Few Things distills the poet's brilliance to its most essential and illuminates Neruda's commitment to using the pen as a calibrator for his age.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781466894525 |
---|---|
Publisher: | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
Publication date: | 09/01/2015 |
Sold by: | Macmillan |
Format: | eBook |
Pages: | 384 |
File size: | 463 KB |
About the Author
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.
Date of Birth:
July 12, 1904Date of Death:
September 23, 1973Place of Birth:
Parral, ChilePlace of Death:
Santiago, ChileEducation:
University of Chile, SantiagoRead an Excerpt
I Explain a Few Things
Selected Poems
By Pablo Neruda, Ilan Stavans
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Copyright © 2007 Pablo Neruda and Fundación Pablo NerudaAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4668-9452-5
CHAPTER 1
FROM
Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada
(1923–24)
FROM
Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair
(1923–24)
XV ME GUSTAS CUANDO CALLAS
Me gustas cuando callas porque estás como ausente,
y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te toca.
Parece que los ojos se te hubieran volado
y parece que un beso te cerrara la boca.
Como todas las cosas están llenas de mi alma
emerges de las cosas, llena del alma mía.
Mariposa de sueño, te pareces a mi alma,
y te pareces a la palabra melancolía.
Me gustas cuando callas y estás como distante.
Y estás como quejándote, mariposa en arrullo.
Y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te alcanza:
déjame que me calle con el silencio tuyo.
Déjame que te hable también con tu silencio
claro como una lámpara, simple como un anillo.
Eres como la noche, callada y constelada.
Tu silencio es de estrella, tan lejano y sencillo.
Me gustas cuando callas porque estás como ausente.
Distante y dolorosa como si hubieras muerto.
Una palabra entonces, una sonrisa bastan.
Y estoy alegre, alegre de que no sea cierto.
XV I LIKE FOR YOU TO BE STILL
I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent,
and you hear me from far away and my voice does not touch you.
It seems as though your eyes had flown away
and it seems that a kiss had sealed your mouth.
As all things are filled with my soul
you emerge from the things, filled with my soul.
You are like my soul, a butterfly of dream,
and you are like the word Melancholy.
I like for you to be still, and you seem far away.
It sounds as though you were lamenting, a butterfly cooing like a dove.
And you hear me from far away, and my voice does not reach you:
Let me come to be still in your silence.
And let me talk to you with your silence
that is bright as a lamp, simple as a ring.
You are like the night, with its stillness and constellations.
Your silence is that of a star, as remote and candid.
I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent,
distant and full of sorrow as though you had died.
One word then, one smile, is enough.
And I am happy, happy that it's not true.
W. S. MERWIN
XX PUEDO ESCRIBIR
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Escribir, por ejemplo: "La noche está estrellada,
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos".
El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Yo la quise, y a veces ella también me quiso.
En las noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos.
La besé tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito.
Ella me quiso, a veces yo también la quería.
Cómo no haber amado sus grandes ojos fijos.
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Pensar que no la tengo. Sentir que la he perdido.
Oír la noche inmensa, más inmensa sin ella.
Y el verso cae al alma como al pasto el rocío.
Qué importa que mi amor no pudiera guardarla.
La noche está estrellada y ella no está conmigo.
Eso es todo. A lo lejos alguien canta. A lo lejos.
Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.
Como para acercarla mi mirada la busca.
Mi corazón la busca, y ella no está conmigo.
La misma noche que hace blanquear los mismos árboles.
Nosotros, los de entonces, ya no somos los mismos.
Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cuánto la quise.
Mi voz buscaba el viento para tocar su oído.
De otro. Será de otro. Como antes de mis besos.
Su voz, su cuerpo claro. Sus ojos infinitos.
Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.
Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.
Porque en noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos,
mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.
Aunque éste sea el último dolor que ella me causa,
y éstos sean los últimos versos que yo le escribo.
XX TONIGHT I CAN WRITE
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, "The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance."
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.
Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.
W. S. MERWIN
FROM
Residencia en la tierra
(1925–35)
Residence on Earth
(1925–35)
ARTE POÉTICA
Entre sombra y espacio, entre guarniciones y doncellas,
dotado de corazón singular y sueños funestos,
precipitadamente pálido, marchito en la frente,
y con luto de viudo furioso por cada día de vida,
ay, para cada agua invisible que bebo soñolientamente,
y de todo sonido que acojo temblando,
tengo la misma sed ausente y la misma fiebre fría,
un oído que nace, una angustia indirecta,
como si llegaran ladrones o fantasmas,
y en una cáscara de extensión fija y profunda,
como un camarero humillado, como una campana un poco ronca,
como un espejo viejo, como un olor de casa sola
en la que los huéspedes entran de noche perdidamente ebrios,
y hay un olor de ropa tirada al suelo, y una ausencia de flores,
posiblemente de otro modo aún menos melancólico,
pero, la verdad, de pronto, el viento que azota mi pecho,
las noches de substancia infinita caídas en mi dormitorio,
el ruido de un día que arde con sacrificio,
me piden lo profético que hay en mí, con melancolía,
y un golpe de objetos que llaman sin ser respondidos
hay, y un movimiento sin tregua, y un nombre confuso.
ARS POETICA
Between shadow and space, between trimmings and damsels,
endowed with a singular heart and sorrowful dreams,
precipitously pallid, withered in the brow
and with a furious widower's mourning for each day of life,
ah, for each invisible water that I drink somnolently
and from every sound that I welcome trembling,
I have the same absent thirst and the same cold fever,
a nascent ear, an indirect anguish,
as if thieves or ghosts were coming,
and in a shell of fixed and profound expanse,
like a humiliated waiter, like a slightly raucous bell,
like an old mirror, like the smell of a solitary house
where the guests come in at night wildly drunk,
and there is a smell of clothes thrown on the floor, and an absence of flowers —
possibly in another even less melancholy way —
but the truth is that suddenly the wind that lashes my chest,
the nights of infinite substance fallen in my bedroom,
the noise of a day that burns with sacrifice,
ask me mournfully what prophecy there is in me,
and there is a swarm of objects that call without being answered,
and a ceaseless movement, and a bewildered man.
DONALD D. WALSH
WALKING AROUND
Sucede que me canso de ser hombre.
Sucede que entro en las sastrerías y en los cines
marchito, impenetrable, como un cisne de fieltro
navegando en un agua de origen y ceniza.
El olor de las peluquerías me hace llorar a gritos.
Sólo quiero un descanso de piedras o de lana,
sólo quiero no ver establecimientos ni jardines,
ni mercaderías, ni anteojos, ni ascensores.
Sucede que me canso de mis pies y mis uñas
y mi pelo y mi sombra.
Sucede que me canso de ser hombre.
Sin embargo sería delicioso
asustar a un notario con un lirio cortado
o dar muerte a una monja con un golpe de oreja.
Sería bello
ir por las calles con un cuchillo verde
y dando gritos hasta morir de frío.
No quiero seguir siendo raíz en las tinieblas,
vacilante, extendido, tiritando de sueño,
hacia abajo, en las tripas mojadas de la tierra,
absorbiendo y pensando, comiendo cada día.
No quiero para mí tantas desgracias.
No quiero continuar de raíz y de tumba,
de subterráneo solo, de bodega con muertos
ateridos, muriéndome de pena.
Por eso el día lunes arde como el petróleo
cuando me ve llegar con mi cara de cárcel,
y aúlla en su transcurso como una rueda herida,
y da pasos de sangre caliente hacia la noche.
Y me empuja a ciertos rincones, a ciertas casas húmedas,
a hospitales donde los huesos salen por la ventana,
a ciertas zapaterías con olor a vinagre,
a calles espantosas como grietas.
Hay pájaros de color de azufre y horribles intestinos
colgando de las puertas de las casas que odio,
hay dentaduras olvidadas en una cafetera,
hay espejos
que debieran haber llorado de vergüenza y espanto,
hay paraguas en todas partes, y venenos, y ombligos.
Yo paseo con calma, con ojos, con zapatos,
con furia, con olvido,
paso, cruzo oficinas y tiendas de ortopedia,
y patios donde hay ropas colgadas de un alambre:
calzoncillos, toallas y camisas que lloran
lentas lágrimas sucias.
WALKING AROUND
It so happens I am sick of being a man.
And it happens that I walk into tailorshops and movie houses
dried up, waterproof, like a swan made of felt
steering my way in a water of wombs and ashes.
The smell of barbershops makes me break into hoarse sobs.
The only thing I want is to lie still like stones or wool,
The only thing I want is to see no more stores, no gardens,
no more goods, no spectacles, no elevators.
It so happens I am sick of my feet and my nails
and my hair and my shadow.
It so happens I am sick of being a man.
Still it would be marvelous
to terrify a law clerk with a cut lily.
or kill a nun with a blow on the ear.
It would be great
to go through the streets with a green knife
letting out yells until I died of the cold.
I don't want to go on being a root in the dark,
insecure, stretched out, shivering with sleep,
going on down, into the moist guts of the earth,
taking in and thinking, eating every day.
I don't want so much misery.
I don't want to go on as a root and a tomb,
alone under the ground, a warehouse with corpses,
half frozen, dying of grief.
That's why Monday, when it sees me coming
with my convict face, blazes up like gasoline,
and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel,
and leaves tracks full of warm blood leading toward the night.
And it pushes me into certain corners, into some moist houses,
into hospitals where the bones fly out the window,
into shoeshops that smell like vinegar,
and certain streets hideous as cracks in the skin.
There are sulfur-colored birds, and hideous intestines
hanging over the doors of houses that I hate,
and there are false teeth forgotten in a coffeepot,
there are mirrors
that ought to have wept from shame and terror,
there are umbrellas everywhere, and venoms, and umbilical cords.
I stroll along serenely, with my eyes, my shoes,
my rage, forgetting everything,
I walk by, going through office buildings and orthopedic shops,
and courtyards with washing hanging from the line:
underwear, towels, and shirts from which slow
dirty tears are falling.
ROBERT BLY
ODA A FEDERICO GARCÍA LORCA
Si pudiera llorar de miedo en una casa sola,
si pudiera sacarme los ojos y comérmelos,
lo haría por tu voz de naranjo enlutado
y por tu poesía que sale dando gritos.
Porque por ti pintan de azul los hospitales
y crecen las escuelas y los barrios marítimos,
y se pueblan de plumas los ángeles heridos,
y se cubren de escamas los pescados nupciales,
y van volando al cielo los erizos:
por ti las sastrerías con sus negras membranas
se llenan de cucharas y de sangre,
y tragan cintas rojas, y se matan a besos,
y se visten de blanco.
Cuando vuelas vestido de durazno,
cuando ríes con risa de arroz huracanado,
cuando para cantar sacudes las arterias y los dientes,
la garganta y los dedos,
me moriría por lo dulce que eres,
me moriría por los lagos rojos
en donde en medio del otoño vives
con un corcel caído y un dios ensangrentado,
me moriría por los cementerios
que como cenicientos ríos pasan
con agua y tumbas,
de noche, entre campanas ahogadas:
ríos espesos como dormitorios
de soldados enfermos, que de súbito crecen
hacia la muerte en ríos con números de mármol
y coronas podridas, y aceites funerales:
me moriría por verte de noche
mirar pasar las cruces anegadas,
de pie y llorando,
porque ante el río de la muerte lloras
abandonadamente, heridamente,
lloras llorando, con los ojos llenos
de lágrimas, de lágrimas, de lágrimas.
Si pudiera de noche, perdidamente solo,
acumular olvido y sombra y humo
sobre ferrocarriles y vapores,
con un embudo negro,
mordiendo las cenizas,
lo haría por el árbol en que creces,
por los nidos de aguas doradas que reúnes,
y por la enredadera que te cubre los huesos
comunicándote el secreto de la noche.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from I Explain a Few Things by Pablo Neruda, Ilan Stavans. Copyright © 2007 Pablo Neruda and Fundación Pablo Neruda. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Copyright Notice,
Preface by Ilan Stavans,
From Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada (1923–24),
From Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (1923–24),
XV Me gustas cuando callas,
XV I Like for You to Be Still,
XX Puedo escribir,
XX Tonight I Can Write,
From Residencia en la tierra (1925–35),
From Residence on Earth (1925–35),
Arte poética,
Ars Poetica,
Walking Around,
Walking Around,
Oda a Federico García Lorca,
Ode to Federico García Lorca,
From Tercera residencia (1934–45),
From Third Residence (1934–45),
Explico algunas cosas,
I Explain a Few Things,
Canto a las madres de los milicianos muertos,
Song for the Mothers of Slain Militiamen,
From Canto general (1938–49),
From Canto General (1938–49),
La United Fruit Co.,
United Fruit Co.,
America, no invoco tu nombre en vano,
America, I Do Not Invoke Your Name in Vain,
Que despierte el leñador I,
I Wish the Woodcutter Would Wake Up I,
La huelga,
The Strike,
From Los versos del capitán (1951–52),
From The Captain's Verses (1951–52),
Tus manos,
Your Hands,
Tu risa,
Your Laughter,
From Odas elementales (1952–54),
From Elemental Odes (1952–54),
Oda a la alcachofa,
Ode to the Artichoke,
Oda al átomo,
Ode to the Atom,
Oda a la crítica,
Ode to Criticism,
Oda a César Vallejo,
Ode to César Vallejo,
From Nuevas odas elementales (1955),
From New Elemental Odes (1955),
Oda al diccionario,
Ode to the Dictionary,
Oda al ojo,
Ode to the Eye,
Oda a Walt Whitman,
Ode to Walt Whitman,
From Tercer libro de odas (1955–57),
From Third Book of Odes (1955–57),
Oda a la sal,
Ode to Salt,
From Estravagario (1957–58),
From Extravagaria (1957–58),
Pido silencio,
I Ask for Silence,
Cuánto pasa en un día,
How Much Happens in a Day,
Muchos somos,
We Are Many,
Testamento de otoño,
Autumn Testament,
From Navegaciones y regresos (1957–59),
From Navigations and Returns (1957–59),
Oda al elefante,
Ode to the Elephant,
Oda a la sandía,
Ode to the Watermelon,
From Cien sonetos de amor (1957–59),
From One Hundred Love Sonnets (1957–59),
IV,
IV,
XI,
XI,
XVI,
XVI,
XLVIII,
XLVIII,
LXXX,
LXXX,
XC,
XC,
XCVII,
XCVII,
From Plenos poderes (1961–62),
From Fully Empowered (1961–62),
Deber del poeta,
The Poet's Obligation,
La palabra,
The Word,
Adioses,
Goodbyes,
Pasado,
Past,
El pueblo,
The People,
Plenos poderes,
Fully Empowered,
From Memorial de Isla Negra (1962–64),
From Isla Negra (1962–64),
El sexo,
Sex,
La poesía,
Poetry,
Ay! Mi ciudad perdida,
Oh, My Lost City,
Tal vez cambié desde entonces,
Perhaps I've Changed Since Then,
Para la envidia,
To Envy,
La memoria,
Memory,
El futuro es espacio,
The Future Is Space,
From Arte de pájaros (1962–65),
From Art of Birds (1962–65),
Migración,
Migration,
From Las manos del día (1967–68),
From The Hands of Day (1967–68),
En Vietnam,
In Vietnam,
Verbo,
Verb,
From Fin del mundo (1968–69),
From World's End (1968–69),
Tristísimo siglo,
The Saddest Century,
From Jardín de invierno (1971–73),
From Winter Garden (1971–73),
Gautama cristo,
Gautama Christ,
From Defectos escogidos (1971–73),
From Selected Failings (1971–73),
El gran orinador,
The Great Urinator,
Acknowledgments,
Index of First Lines,
About the Authors,
Translators,
Copyright,