King Arthur Movie Tristan

April is National Poetry Month and what better time than now to read and celebrate poetry? Serena has organized the National Poetry Month Blog Tour and I am happy to be a part of that.



My regular blog readers might have figured out by now that I do enjoy poetry. Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes and Robert Frost are among my favorites. Not too long ago I discovered the wonderful work of Pablo Neruda through the recommendation of fellow book blogger, Kelly. I read Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair and was amazed at the beauty and sadness to this collection of poems.
First published in 1924 as Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada, and translated in 1969, this collection of poetry is about love, loss and heartache.

I like reading Neruda's poetry in Spanish best, I feel it does lose something in translation. I think one of the reasons I enjoy his poems so much is simply because there is both beauty and pain to his words.








Neruda was born Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto on July 12, 1904 in Chile. His mother Rosa Basoalto, died two months after he was born. He showed a love of literature from an early age and took great inpsiration from Walt Whitman. By 1920 he took the pseudonym of Pablo Neruda, which he is thought to have taken from Czech poet Jan Neruda. Neruda was twenty when Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair was published, and this collection of poems made him a celebrity. In 1971 Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Literature. He is said to have almost always written using green ink because it was the color of Hope. Neruda was a diplomat and very much involved in politics. He was known as 'the people's poet'. From the 1940's and on, his works mostly reflected the political struggle in South America.



He passed away of heart failure on September 23, 1973.



It's hard for me to pick just one favorite Neruda poem, but I will leave you with a favorite called '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.




The video below is of Madonna reading this poem. I think it's really nicely done, especially the music that follows.




What do you think of this poem? Feel free to discuss. I think my favorite line is:

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.

For me this poem is about a love that survives distance and time. About two people that are meant to be together even if they are apart.



You can read more of Pablo Neruda's work
here. I hope you will check him out if you haven't already done so.


Stop by Serena's blog to see the other bloggers on the tour and see the other poets that are being showcased.