Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (1924)

Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair is a short book of poems by the famous Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. The Penguin edition that I have is bilingual, which is perfect for people like me with just enough Spanish to appreciate the language while still needing the English translation for cribbing / vocabulary help.

As far as the poetry goes, it's good stuff. Neruda has an excellent feel for diction and rhythm. It's a lot of the speaker going on about how beautiful his love is or how she's gone and he misses her.

Recommended for Neruda fans or people seeking poetic inspiration. ( )

XII, XIV, XVIII

Plus LXII. ;) ( )

Splendid book of poetry! ( )

It’s a little startling to realize that Chilean poet Pablo Neruda wrote Veinte Poemas de Amor y una Cancion Deseperada (1924) when he was only twenty years old. As an old man when he received the Nobel Prize, Neruda said a poet must achieve a balance “between solitude and solidarity, between feeling and action, between the intimacy of one’s self, the intimacy of mankind, and the revelation of nature.” He certainly strikes that balance here, moreover, these poems balance the youthful emotion of love with mature reflection. The imagery is often striking and the poetry always lyrical.

My favorite poems in this collection are:
So That You Will Hear Me
We Have Lost Even
I Have Gone Marking
Here I Love You
Tonight I Can Write

I find it hard to extract quotes; with poetry it’s always difficult but with Neruda in particular it seems like dissection. I do include some anyway, but encourage you to look up the above poems for a taste of Neruda’s work.

Quotes:
From So That You Will Hear Me:
“Love me companion. Don’t forsake me. Follow me.
Follow me, companion, on this wave of anguish.”

From We Have Lost Even:
“Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly
when I am sad and feel you are far away?”

From I Have Gone Marking:
“Stories to tell you on the shore of evening,
sad and gentle doll, so that you should not be sad.
As swan, a tree, something far away and happy.
The season of grapes, the ripe and fruitful season.
…
Oh to be able to celebrate you with all the words of joy.”

From Every Day You Play:
“I go so far as to think that you own the universe.
I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains,
bluebells,
dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.
I want
to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”

From Here I Love You:
“The moon turns its clockwork dream.
The biggest stars look at me with your eyes.
And as I love you, the pines in the wind
want to sing your name with their leaves of wire.”

From Tonight I Can Write:
“I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.” ( )

Breathtakingly beautiful. I'm not one for poetry, but I savor each word of Neruda. ( )