This is a bilingual review: English first, then Spanish./Esta es una reseña bilingüe: inglés, luego español. (Muchas gracias, Miquel.)"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." - 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 by Paul of Tar...

3 THINGS ABOUT THIS BOOK1. I went to Pablo Neruda's house once. Well, I went to one of his houses. He had three of them. I was teaching English in Santiago, Chile at the time. I went to Neruda's house in Valparaiso, which is a beach town. Weirdly enough, I visited on my twentieth birthday, on a lark, because I just happened to be vacationing in a nearby cabin with my host family.The thing that I remember about Pablo Neruda's house is that it's set back in a grove of dark pine trees and that ther...

When it comes to an author so popular, so admired, it is true that I expected something extraordinary. But, unfortunately, it spoils this effect of discovery. My first Neruda was a bilingual collection (where I also had fun reading the original version) made up of three small clusters of different shapes. Elementary writing, but which reaches grandeur, where the woman is at the centre; all types of women and metaphors. Neruda has managed to express himself around such familiar topics as love and...

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long. -Pablo NerudaNeruda was accomplished in a variety of styles ranging from erotically charged love poems like his collection Twenty Poems of Love and a Song of Despair, surrealist poems, historical epics, and overtly political manifestos. Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair is an amazing collection of poetry. His words caress the senses; imagery so delicious and fulfilling you can not only see

“ The light wraps you in its mortal flame. Abstracted pale mourner, standing that way against the old propellers of twilight that revolves around you. ”Neruda is one of the poets who taught me to love poetry the way it is; without over-analysing or trying to critically delve deeper below the words, as we were taught in school. The first collection that I read of him, he wrote this at an age of 17, and that’s 2 years younger than me, now. When I read this collection for the first time, and, eve...

Tempting as it may appear to wrap the poetic pearls from this collection of Neruda’s heartbeats into a warm shawl of erotic wool, do resist it and pause. These loquacious verses that assemble at the nape of a lover or ripple playfully across the soft mountains of a beloved’s waist, magnify when viewed through the dual lenses of night and water . I have said that you sang in the windlike pines and like masts.Like them you are tall and taciturn,and you are sad, all at once, like a voyage....

"Speechless, my friend, alone in the loneliness of this hour of the dead and filled with the lives of fire, pure heir of the ruined day. "It was glorious one ! ! ! As I had seen recently in some friend's review and Crossing my other books, I've chosen to read it first which had been waiting for me so long in my shelf.Well, It's classic poetry with all the poetic devices were glittering in so wonderful form of words along in thread of rhythmic poetry. However, I'm keen reader of profound and dee...

Sensual poetic beauty, with a lingering sadness, this collection of poems written when Chilean Neruda was only 19 is a remarkable feat, but was not received well for the intense and sexual content, this time being 1924 I can understand why, however, there is no explicit text it's more to do with imagery using the surrounding environment, charting oceanic movements of passion along with the changing weather, to tell of youthful love. " I have gone marking the atlas of your body / with crosses of

One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVIIPablo NerudaPablo Neruda was one of the great poets of the twentieth century, one of the great poets of all time—one of the great love poets, surrealist poets, political poets, poets of odes to common things. Here's one:I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz, or arrow of carnations that propagate fire: I love you as one loves certain obscure things, secretly, between the shadow and the soul.I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries the li...

Achingly beautiful and haunting - words that transition from falling stars to fireflies as you are lost in wanting - highest recommendation.

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 th...

Oír la noche inmensa, más inmensa sin ella.Y el verso cae al alma como al pasto el rocío. *To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.This is musicality being butchered. Always more interested in the song of despair, but I feel like giving this another try due to someone's review, and after many years.April 24, 19*Sometimes, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Again, three stars. A bit tragic, despite being a...

Beautiful and sensual with a touch of lingering sadness.One of my favs:Tonight I can write the saddest lines.Write, for example,'The night is shatteredand the blue stars 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 armsI kissed her again and again under the endless sky.She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.How could one not have loved her g...

How beautifully fragile we are, that so many things take but a moment to alter who we are, for forever. We are all, just an unforeseen encounter, an unexpected phone call, a diagnosis, a newly found love, or a broken heart away from becoming a completely different person. Our hearts betray us to the places we never thought be visiting, our reasons fail us to the most uninvited chasms we surrender ourselves into, knowingly. Our souls ripped open and raw, our hearts on display, Love leaves vulnera...

One of the most beautiful collection of love poems ever (and followed by one which will bring tears to your eyes), Neruda is clearly a master of language and feeling and I always derive comfort from every time I read this book. She loved me, sometimes I loved her.How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.To think I don’t have her. To feel that I’ve lost her. To hear the immense night, more immense without her. And the poem falls to the soul as d...

Veinte Poemas de Amor y una Canción Desesperada = Twenty love Poems and a Song of Despair, Pablo Neruda Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, is a collection of romantic poems, by the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, first published in 1924 by Editorial Nascimento of Santiago, when Neruda was 19. It was Neruda's second published work, after Twilight (1923) and made his name as a poet. Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair was controversial for its eroticism, especially considering its author's ve...

Stephen Dobyns, in his forward to this edition, tells of what occurred at a poetry event in Venezuela, sometime in the ‘60’s. After Chilean poet Pablo Neruda concluded his prepared reading, he opened himself up to requests. The first request, from a member of this audience of six hundred, was for poem #20 from this book (“Tonight I could write the saddest lines”). When Neruda apologized, saying he had neglected to bring that particular poem, “four hundred people stood up and recited the poem to

[Note on edit: This is not a review. These are peals of pleasure of a man drunk on Neruda wine, blurting out extempore, when he finished reading this poetry collection]Pablo Neruda – the name evokes romance and revolution in my consciousness, a riot of metaphors impregnated with sui generis imagery, a dark and intense celebration of love and beauty, a flood of high emotions that assails my senses and then dulls them, such that in that state of mind I'm receptive to nothing in the world except Ne...

I do not love you except because I love you;I go from loving to not loving you,From waiting to not waiting for youMy heart moves from cold to fire.I love you only because it's you the one I love;I hate you deeply, and hating youBend to you, and the measure of my changing love for youIs that I do not see you but love you blindly.Maybe January light will consumeMy heart with its cruelRay, stealing my key to true calm.In this part of the story I am the one whoDies, the only one, and I will die of l...

I adore Neruda's poetry. The only reason that I am giving 4 stars and not 5, is because the "woman as a doll" imagery that he seems fond of using put me off every time I came across it...