Veinte poemas de amor... por Pablo Neruda

I genuinely enjoyed reading Neruda’s poetry, even more so than that of Mistral, whose words I found to be very moving. I was pleased to see many correlations between the poetry of Mistral and Neruda. I don’t know whether the similarities stem from their Chilean roots or whether these two poets simply share similar passions, but both poets were able to move me deeply with their allusions to the elements and their heartfelt praise for the natural world. My favourites of all Neruda’s poems were Poema 4, Poema 5 and Poema 6.

I found Poema 4, an allusion to wind, to be beautifully descriptive. I loved Neruda’s ability to personify natural forces as if he were talking about a passionate lover or fellow human being. His description of the wind, “buzzing between the trees, orchestral and divine, like a language full of wars and of songs” was deeply emotional. Neruda does not simply state facts as facts. His romantic perspective pervades all of his poetry, as he compares a phenomenon commonplace as wind to a tempestuous morning in the heart of summer. Neruda’s ability to make even trash blowing in the wind sound like romantic poetry is dumbfounding.

I found Poema 5 to be sophisticated in its level of metatextuality. Reflexive in nature, the poem comments on the poet’s words, slowly wasting away as we read the very words of which he speaks. The imagery of words thinning and slowly fading away like the footprints of seagulls on the beach was beautiful. Neruda’s use of repetition of a line from the beginning of the poem, near the ending helped to give his poetry a cyclical quality. It seems as though we end back at the point where we began as he emphasizes: “todo lo llenas tú, todo lo llenas” and “todo lo ocupas tú, todo lo ocupas.”

Poema 5 was my very favourite of all the poems. The imagery achieved was truly breathtaking. Rich, fiery colours of rust, auburn, red, gold and grey came to mind with every image Neruda described: boina gris, crepúsculo, hojas de otoño, hoguera, sed ardiente, brasas y humo.” The images produced an atmosphere of autumn, of nature dying to make way for rebirth, but its rich palette was also reminiscent of fire and ash, which also fits with the cycle of destruction and rebirth. The figurative burning of unquenchable desires was a common theme that ran throughout the poem as Neruda described his deeply passionate love for an unknown woman. My favourite lines of the poem were "Y las hojas caían en el agua de tu alma" and "Y caían mis besos alegres como brasas," strictly because of their beauty. I feel as though the colours, the imagery, the similes of the poem effectively combine to produce the image of an intensely fiery, passionate, attractive woman.

I found Neruda’s Poema 9 to be both interesting and fairly sexually suggestive. It sounded to me as one extended metaphor for sexual desire and glorified male gratification. The images at the beginning of the poem were reminiscent of a day of surfing, but definitely appeared to possess a double meaning. I found this to be his most bold and blatantly sexual poem. Did anyone else feel this way?