4.04 AVERAGE

emotional hopeful reflective sad fast-paced
dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: N/A
Strong character development: N/A
Loveable characters: N/A
Diverse cast of characters: N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A
emotional fast-paced
emotional reflective sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: N/A
Strong character development: N/A
Loveable characters: N/A
Diverse cast of characters: N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A

“Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido”.

u know what they say : “nothing like neruda”

a valentine’s gift for my lóv

I’ve encountered Neruda’s name many times. More specifically with “Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines”, but since I only to read this for my contemporary global literature course I didn’t have a chance to read his whole collection until now. Reading poetry in Spanish makes me feel closer to my roots, but I wanted to make sure that when I did read something in Spanish that it was actually good. Not just a poem initially written in English and translated into Spanish. Maybe I romanticize the language too much, but how could I not? Neruda gives me more a reason too, and it’s beautiful.
challenging mysterious reflective slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: N/A
Strong character development: N/A
Loveable characters: N/A
Diverse cast of characters: N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A

It’s important to remind myself that this was originally published in 1924. To note that poetry’s mis-presumption of context is not a kind place for vocabulary building via inference. And that translating poetry is crazy difficult. 

I wonder if the English versions of Neruda’s poems feel more mundane to me than the Spanish ones, despite their overall all-or-nothing romanticism. Or if I eventually connected more with the feel of the Spanish ones because I had to work at them.

“You undermine the horizon with your absence” [Your Breast Is Enough]

Regardless, there’s a quality of the work, entirely its own, even without translation, that prompts listening less so to your head and more so to your gut. That prompts a type of hearing where impressions and feelings matter more than sense. 

“Aim my road on your bow of hope 
and in a frenzy I will free my flock of arrows” [Ah Vastness of Pines]

The more I read these poems, the more I find. I hope to return to again when I’ll hear more yet still. 

took this from 尚

if someone wrote these about me i would disintegrate into 100 million pieces