Pablo Neruda: My Favorite Poet

My favorite poet is Pablo Neruda. Neruda was born on July 12, 1904 as Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. He later changed his name to Neruda after the Czech poet Jan Neruda. Neruda wrote a variety of poems, including political manifestos, surreal poems, historical poems and love poetry.

I was introduced to Neruda's poetry through a collection called "100 Love Sonnets", written by Neruda and translated by Stephen Tapscott. Pablo Neruda is expecially known for his erotic and sensually charged love poetry. "100 Love Sonnets" is a collection that was inspired by his wife, Matilde Urrutia de Neruda. The poems seem to span a lifetime as they reveal the depth of love that comes from sharing a life together. Some of his poems speak of a love that goes beyond death itself. An excerpt from poem XCII of the collection reads:

"Absence is such a transparent house

that even being dead I will see you there,

and if you suffer, Love, I'll die a second time.

Neruda's poetry also consists of an earthiness, using nature in much of the imagery that he writes about in declaring his love. An example of this comes from poem XVIII of the collection. The first verse reads:

"You move through the mountains like a breeze,

like a quick stream dropping from under the snow;

your hair in its thickness throbs like the high

adornments of the sun, repeating them for me."

Another component of Neruda's poetry is the erotic sensuality that speaks to the heart and soul of the reader. Poem XII of the collection is one such poem, beautiful in its sensuality. Here is an excerpt:

"Kiss by kiss I travel your little infinity,

your borders, your rivers, your tiny villages;

and a genital fire ...transformed, delicious...

sips through the narrow roadways of the blood

til it pours itself, quick, like a night carnation, til it is:

and is nothing, in shadow, and a flimmer of light."

Neruda's poetry is beautiful in the imagery that it portrays. His words stay with me, lingering in my mind. His words inspire me to write my own poetry.

Pablo Neruda was known for many things. He was a political activist, a politician, as well as a poet. In 1971, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature. Many people have referred to Neruda as the greatest poet of the 20^th century. The San Francisco Examiner said that Neruda's 100 Sensual Love Sonnets is "Sensual as a tropical night swirling in honeysuckle and jazz..."