18 Comments

I get enough of Neruda's artistry and brilliance.

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That last line.. <3 .. giving self permission to truly live in the beauty of silence ❤️✨️🙏🏽

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In fourth place is summertime round like a watermelon? Sum er time,does not rhyme.round like a bun untied.no ,this one's mine.i found a ruby mind.I think got it.round like a clementine. I really like your poem.The Mayor.

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I remember discussing Neruda with my friend Josef Skvorecky (who knew a thing or two about 20th century totalitarianism) at his townhouse in Toronto's Cabbagetown. He only had disgust. He said he was a poser, fancy words but underneath, he'd throw everyone into the furnace, his Stalinist leanings and support we sickening. Read his putrid poem, ode to Stalin ... I do think Neruda needs a real evaluation, too many sucked into sleep by his sweet poison. https://lyricstranslate.com/en/oda-stalin-ode-stalin.html

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This says he regretted his support of Stalin.

https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Pablo_Neruda

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Mary, That brief, unattributed comment in Wikipedia is disingenuous. While he did so in the wake of criticisms of his nomination for the Nobel Prize in 1971 (???) it was so, so long after he knew of the atrocities, the lagers, the millions dead, the Holodomar, the mass executions. Even when the USSR had begun de-Stalinization, Neruda persisted in his praise. Though he was far from alone - he endured in those beliefs much longer than any intellectual of the time (like say Shaw. His ideology was "a few eggs need be broken to make an omelet. I am with Paz's assessment - he know Neruda intimately during Neruda's time as consul general for Chile in Mexico. Eisner's biography on Neruda is a good read. I do wish Auden would have won the Nobel instead of Neruda. A poet should never be a blowhorn for political atrocities, no matter how sweet their tongue.

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This is why it's important to separate the art from the artist. Many poets and philosophers were vile creatures, I post them all the time, but their works were important and beautiful. I don't read poetry from the flawless--that would be dull. As Charles Bukowski once said:

“great writers are indecent people

they live unfairly

saving the best part for paper.

good human beings save the world

so that bastards like me can keep creating art,

become immortal."

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Bukowski was much nicer than his reputation suggests, MUCH nicer. Oh I get your point but then why do authors put their names to works? You are echoing Barthes "Death Of the Author". You can't have it both ways. Once your name goes on it, you own it. Criticism and all. No separation possible, imho. I do like flawed writers but proselytizing in the name of an ideology of such inhuman evil is more than a character flaw, imho.

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I don’t disagree. But many artists espoused horrible ideologies and/or were awful people in their own right….

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“you’ll have to make yourselves forget me,

erasing the blackboard of me”

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Awesome poem!

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I love the idea of the poem, the way it starts and it ends: leave me alone so that I can close my eyes (and die) only to be born again at the end. And probably all things in between will be imprinted by this transformation, for the soul transcends the matter

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Who translated this wonderful poem/

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Neruda's artistry is out of this world!

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