Neruda's Lost Women

[miyako73]

Neruda's Lost Women

(a found poem)



"Young Lady, brown and agile, the sun that makes the fruits,
Almost out of the sky, anchors between two mountains;
You play every day with the light of the universe.
The light wraps you in its mortal flame
Drunk with turpentine and long kisses.
Your breast is enough for my heart
I have been marking with crosses of fire
For you to hear me.
Ah! vastness of pines, murmur of waves breaking,
It is the morning full of storm.


Body of woman, white hills, white thighs,
White bee, drunk with honey, you buzz in my soul.
I remember you as you were in the last autumn.
In my sky at twilight you are like a cloud;
I like when you are quiet because as if you are absent.
Here I love you.
Leaning into the afternoons, I cast my sad nets,
Thinking, entangling shadows in the deep solitude.
We have lost even this twilight;
I can write the saddest verses tonight."



(c) 2/2/2014



This poem used all the first lines of Neruda's twenty love poems. I kept those lines intact and unchanged but I moved them around to make sense and verse. Thanks for reading.

[YesNo]

There was a recent thread on Neruda's poetry. As a result of it I remember looking at Neruda's "20 love poems and one of despair" and wondering if Neruda knew how to love anyone. It seemed like he was looking for a woman with more means than he had to support him in these poems and his whining came when he could not get one of the two or three he was concurrently writing love letters to to marry him. As far as sex went, he could get that from whomever he could get his hands on.

Adam Feinstein wrote a biography of Neruda a decade ago that I thought was pretty good. There were many women in Neruda's life. I don't think he treated any of them well.

[miyako73]

Thanks for reading, YesNo. I think he had a weird concept of muse. He wanted his muses--even exotic dancers and prostitutes--to inspire him, and he dumped them afterwards. I find it metaphorical and poetic. Before his muse could disappear, he let her go.

[Lykren]

There was a recent thread on Neruda's poetry. As a result of it I remember looking at Neruda's "20 love poems and one of despair" and wondering if Neruda knew how to love anyone. It seemed like he was looking for a woman with more means than he had to support him in these poems and his whining came when he could not get one of the two or three he was concurrently writing love letters to to marry him. As far as sex went, he could get that from whomever he could get his hands on.

Adam Feinstein wrote a biography of Neruda a decade ago that I thought was pretty good. There were many women in Neruda's life. I don't think he treated any of them well.

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And what's that have to do with the poetry?

[YesNo]

I don't know. Perhaps everything. Perhaps nothing. I suppose it would depend on the manipulation involved between the poet and the public. Was there an intended deception going on or not?

For example, suppose you get a love letter from someone proposing marriage and then you find out that the guy or girl has sent a similar love letter to someone else and the only reason you are getting the offer is because you have financial assets, what does knowing that have to do with the love letter? It's still a nice love letter.

To bring this back to miyako73's post, I don't understand the word "Lost" in the title.

[108 fountains]

I’m not a huge fan of poetry (probably because I’m not sophisticated enough to understand most of what’s out there), but there are some poems and poets that I really enjoy, and Pablo Neruda is one of them. I’m certainly no expert on him, but it seems to me that his attitude towards women as expressed in his poetry changed – matured – as he himself got older. The earlier works are full of sexual imagery and tend to center on himself and how he relates to women; the later works tend to focus on the romantic relationship itself – seems to me the later works describe deeper, more selfless feelings. Of course there are exceptions to this, but that is a general tendency that I get from reading his poems. Others, no doubt will have their own views.

To get back to Miyako73’s post, I really liked what she did. It is beautiful and flows as if the lines were meant to be together that way, probably because the great images Neruda uses are almost like building blocks that can be assembled in different patterns. Now a challenge – can you do the same thing with One Hundred Love Sonnets?

[miyako73]

Yes, 108 fountains. I'm currently doing it. But I'm using the last lines this time. Very very difficult because of the recurring "Matilde". Thanks for reading.

[Lykren]

I don't know. Perhaps everything. Perhaps nothing. I suppose it would depend on the manipulation involved between the poet and the public. Was there an intended deception going on or not?

For example, suppose you get a love letter from someone proposing marriage and then you find out that the guy or girl has sent a similar love letter to someone else and the only reason you are getting the offer is because you have financial assets, what does knowing that have to do with the love letter? It's still a nice love letter.

To bring this back to miyako73's post, I don't understand the word "Lost" in the title.

Your second paragraph here answers your first, no? It doesn't make sense to read literary works such as novels or poetry in order to gain an objective understanding of a situation. The letter's value as an attempt to communicate in a practical sense is independent of its value as literature, because fine art, in general, is not about uncovering literal truth.

So, why would it depend on whatever manipulation or deception might occur between poet and reader? Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair is not a rhetorical document.