100 years of Neruda
August 2, 2004 | 12:00am
Our own exposure to the South American country of Chile in these islands has been limited to such fine wine as Gato Negro and the poetry of its greatest poet of the last century, Pablo Neruda. It’s easy to get drunk on either of them, though at times the wine is more accessible if less rewarding.
But the poetry of Neruda is not difficult to like, even in translation. A book of his that we happened to stumble on during a protracted adolescence eons ago, was actually one in tandem with the Peruvian Cesar Vallejo, the Chilean’s contemporary though some years older. It was a bilingual edition, with translations by Robert Bly, WS Merwin, among others. The rather slim anthology helped introduce us to the wild vegetal world of Latin American poetry, an influence evident on our own shores with the Palanca winners at the time. No lover could fail wooing the object of his desire by quoting, verbatim, lines from Neruda’s 20 Love Poems and One Song of Desperation. Written when the poet was barely out of his teens, 20 Love Poems astounds with its enduring sensuality, and recordings of it from the soundtrack of the movie Il Postino (The Postman) by famous actors and actresses only remind us of its raw power. "Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs…" in such manner did the voice trail off in an earthiness that shimmered and traced the contours of a bell.
We don’t really recall if Il Postino was shown here commercially, subtitles and all, or even if the soundtrack was made available in the usually well-stocked CD stores, but the movie served its purpose of bringing awareness of Neruda to a wider audience. And with the voices of Sting and Madonna reading his verse, here clearly was music without the standard instrumentation. All the accompaniment you needed was in the way you listened, one invisible hand cupping an equally invisible heart.
During the month of July, the country of Chile, which for many Filipinos exists only in the imagination of wine and poetry, celebrated the centennial of the poet’s birth, and so inspired a reassessment and rereading of Neruda’s work in a time of counter-terror and the jazz-like ramblings on the pitch of the ongoing Copa America. As that other great South American writer the Argentine Jorge Luis Borges said, the secret is not in reading but in rereading. Or are we merely putting words in a dead man’s mouth? Nevertheless, let us add our own 25 centavos worth to that and say, not only is there creative writing but also creative reading. The deconstructionists will have a heyday on that and choke on Focault and Derrida and varied expletives, but there is something in Neruda’s poems – yes, even in translation, or perhaps more so – that goes beyond scholarly perusal.
A few of Neruda’s books can be found in obscure corners of specialty bookstores, located in even more obscure corners of the metropolis that have a way of jumping at the unwary pedestrian in constant awe of the city. Maybe the books and translations go at what could be comparatively exorbitant rates to keep in stride with the runaway inflation, but this should not make the average browser lose heart. Not that he should resort to the old shoplifting trick, no far from that. If there’s a will to read these poems, then there’s a way, even if one cannot at last possess them but rather, be possessed by them.
Aside from the 20 Poems – easily the most popular Neruda book – other of the Nobel prize winner’s books here consist mostly of selected, collected poems and personal anthologies, the selections handpicked if not by the poet himself then certainly by his most ardent biographers and scholars.
How many times have we walked the grimy sidewalks of the city with lines of Neruda somehow echoing in our weary heads, "It so happens I’m tired of just being a man" (from "Walking Around," Residencia en la Tierra II). We remember the transsexual translator in Agencia Efe, and a song by David Bowie, "Heroes," how we can be heroes just for one day, with or without a sex change. Or, "Ask me where have I been/ and I’ll tell you: ‘Things keep on happening’." (from "There’s No Forgetting," Residencia en la Tierra II, trans. by Ben Belitt). In the distinct Spanish, the last sentence is plainly stated as "Sucede," which should give a hint of the brevity of the original.
After the series of three Residencia volumes, came the post-war Canto General, which showed the sure political and lyric maturation of the poet. In Canto is perhaps Neruda’s most anthologized long poem, the epic "Heights of Macchu Picchu," lines of which came thundering down the subconscious of a whole school of Filipino epic poets of the ’70s or thereabouts.
Another popular book of Neruda’s is the Elemental Odes, which actually is a series, and where the poet dives deep into the surreal core of things, chasing down an idea to where few writers dare go, to finally reveal them as they really are: The cat, the piano, the artichoke, the guitar, an onion, a girl gardening, a smell of cordwood, a light from the sea, double autumns and a poet grown old. Each is borne out in its own suffuse light, that we may come to an understanding, however finite and confined by the mortal world, of the elements.
Neruda actually has a prose work, an autobiography called Memoirs, wherein he chronicles his various travels and women as well the growth and sparks of his ever-evolving poetry. We recall having read this a long time ago, in the Bay Area while visiting a brother, and reveled at a passage in which the poet narrates how he acquired a pet mongoose in Burma as protection from vipers. In Chile, celebrations were in store for the July 12 Neruda centennial, where leaflets of his poems would fall from the sky, and we on the other side of the world could only raise a glass or two of Gato Negro and toast the memory of mongooses.
But the poetry of Neruda is not difficult to like, even in translation. A book of his that we happened to stumble on during a protracted adolescence eons ago, was actually one in tandem with the Peruvian Cesar Vallejo, the Chilean’s contemporary though some years older. It was a bilingual edition, with translations by Robert Bly, WS Merwin, among others. The rather slim anthology helped introduce us to the wild vegetal world of Latin American poetry, an influence evident on our own shores with the Palanca winners at the time. No lover could fail wooing the object of his desire by quoting, verbatim, lines from Neruda’s 20 Love Poems and One Song of Desperation. Written when the poet was barely out of his teens, 20 Love Poems astounds with its enduring sensuality, and recordings of it from the soundtrack of the movie Il Postino (The Postman) by famous actors and actresses only remind us of its raw power. "Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs…" in such manner did the voice trail off in an earthiness that shimmered and traced the contours of a bell.
We don’t really recall if Il Postino was shown here commercially, subtitles and all, or even if the soundtrack was made available in the usually well-stocked CD stores, but the movie served its purpose of bringing awareness of Neruda to a wider audience. And with the voices of Sting and Madonna reading his verse, here clearly was music without the standard instrumentation. All the accompaniment you needed was in the way you listened, one invisible hand cupping an equally invisible heart.
During the month of July, the country of Chile, which for many Filipinos exists only in the imagination of wine and poetry, celebrated the centennial of the poet’s birth, and so inspired a reassessment and rereading of Neruda’s work in a time of counter-terror and the jazz-like ramblings on the pitch of the ongoing Copa America. As that other great South American writer the Argentine Jorge Luis Borges said, the secret is not in reading but in rereading. Or are we merely putting words in a dead man’s mouth? Nevertheless, let us add our own 25 centavos worth to that and say, not only is there creative writing but also creative reading. The deconstructionists will have a heyday on that and choke on Focault and Derrida and varied expletives, but there is something in Neruda’s poems – yes, even in translation, or perhaps more so – that goes beyond scholarly perusal.
A few of Neruda’s books can be found in obscure corners of specialty bookstores, located in even more obscure corners of the metropolis that have a way of jumping at the unwary pedestrian in constant awe of the city. Maybe the books and translations go at what could be comparatively exorbitant rates to keep in stride with the runaway inflation, but this should not make the average browser lose heart. Not that he should resort to the old shoplifting trick, no far from that. If there’s a will to read these poems, then there’s a way, even if one cannot at last possess them but rather, be possessed by them.
Aside from the 20 Poems – easily the most popular Neruda book – other of the Nobel prize winner’s books here consist mostly of selected, collected poems and personal anthologies, the selections handpicked if not by the poet himself then certainly by his most ardent biographers and scholars.
How many times have we walked the grimy sidewalks of the city with lines of Neruda somehow echoing in our weary heads, "It so happens I’m tired of just being a man" (from "Walking Around," Residencia en la Tierra II). We remember the transsexual translator in Agencia Efe, and a song by David Bowie, "Heroes," how we can be heroes just for one day, with or without a sex change. Or, "Ask me where have I been/ and I’ll tell you: ‘Things keep on happening’." (from "There’s No Forgetting," Residencia en la Tierra II, trans. by Ben Belitt). In the distinct Spanish, the last sentence is plainly stated as "Sucede," which should give a hint of the brevity of the original.
After the series of three Residencia volumes, came the post-war Canto General, which showed the sure political and lyric maturation of the poet. In Canto is perhaps Neruda’s most anthologized long poem, the epic "Heights of Macchu Picchu," lines of which came thundering down the subconscious of a whole school of Filipino epic poets of the ’70s or thereabouts.
Another popular book of Neruda’s is the Elemental Odes, which actually is a series, and where the poet dives deep into the surreal core of things, chasing down an idea to where few writers dare go, to finally reveal them as they really are: The cat, the piano, the artichoke, the guitar, an onion, a girl gardening, a smell of cordwood, a light from the sea, double autumns and a poet grown old. Each is borne out in its own suffuse light, that we may come to an understanding, however finite and confined by the mortal world, of the elements.
Neruda actually has a prose work, an autobiography called Memoirs, wherein he chronicles his various travels and women as well the growth and sparks of his ever-evolving poetry. We recall having read this a long time ago, in the Bay Area while visiting a brother, and reveled at a passage in which the poet narrates how he acquired a pet mongoose in Burma as protection from vipers. In Chile, celebrations were in store for the July 12 Neruda centennial, where leaflets of his poems would fall from the sky, and we on the other side of the world could only raise a glass or two of Gato Negro and toast the memory of mongooses.
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