In his “Poetry” Pablo Neruda uses personification to describe poetry as if it were a being person, it came for the writer “in search of me.” . He doesn’t know where it comes from, or how, or when. Pablo Neruda was a collector . But in “Poetry” he give the feeling that it was the art that was collecting him, not the other way around. He”was summoned.” and “something stirred in my soul.” .
Neruda saw himself as a man of multiple, sometimes conflicting pursuits, but in “poetry” he is drawn inexorably on a single path following just one muse. He won the Noble Prize for poetry in 1971, and in his biography on their web site it lists some of his accomplishments outside the art of poetry, as statesman, protester, writer of prose and history. It tells of his family, from the town of Parral in Chile. His father who worked for the railway and his mother who died just after he was born. It lists his profession life from when he started writing at age 13, what he did in the Spanish Civil War and his diplomatic career . None of that seems important when it comes to “Poetry”
The poem truly does take on a life of its own, drawing you in with “not voices, no silence,” . Somehow, in a sketch of a few words a street is painted and trees assembles from “the branches of night” The identity of the poem, of poetry become greater than that of the writer himself for he is “without a face” . and then “it touched me” . he is speech less, a writer without words, and so was I a reader caught in a frozen moment, mute witness to the muse of words. Reading while the writer is enraptured, his eyes blind his mouth without names, and then Neruda writes “something started in my soul, fever or forgotten wings.” . Poetry moves forward and the writer makes his own way. following it seem “deciphering that fire.” . The feeling is of a man newly awakened to a world with is both familiar and suddenly changed and new. The feeling is of stumbling as he starts to write “pure nonsense, pure wisdom” . Then he gains ground, feels the strength of the words as “of someone who knows nothing, and suddenly I saw the heavens unfastened and open,” . This is not only a new world but a new universe, all in motion. He is drawn in, and so is the reader. Poetry demands the interaction, requires the experience for both writer and reader; there is no escape, and there is no desire for escape. Poetry is all that is an integral part of all and yet embracing everything as well. Palpitation plantations, planets arrows, fire and flowers tumble in your mind through “the winding night, the universe.” . for a moment, all seems to be frozen again “a pure part of the abysswheeled with the start, my heart broke loose on the wind.” . Then Poetry ends and you can breathe again, deeply and fully knowing the touch of the eternal.
Pablo Neruda was a man who harmonized seeming opposite qualities and pursuits. Poetry does not deign to consider that, everything is united in its all encompassing arms.
Austin, K. (2012). Pablo Newuda as Collector, Translator and Poet. Retrieved 5 11, 2012, from Project Muse: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/the_comparatist/v032/32.austin.html
Neruda, P. (2010). Poetry. In R. W. Clugston, Journey into Literature. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.
Noble Prize. (1971). Pablo Newuda. Retrieved 5 11, 2012, from Noble Prize: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1971/neruda-bio.html
