20 Love Poems and A Song Of Despair - Chile 🇨🇱

The first time I heard Poem XX being recited, it was so powerful that, even at that time, when I had not felt what love is and how it feels to lose it, I was strongly impacted by it.

20 Love Poems and a Song of Despair are an impressive collection of poems about love and its different phases by a young Pablo Neruda. The way he compares nature, the seasons and the lover it's beautiful.

I bought the ebook thinking it would be perfect for what I needed at the time: feed me with the lyricism I needed and help me learn Spanish.

I read a poem or two. For poetry, I am used to open a random page and soaking up the words. This process is harder on an eBook than on a physical book. And I ended up putting it aside, busy with day-to-day tasks and problems.

When returning now to this book, I read it several times. And finally, I read the book together with recitations available on the internet (which I recommend after the first reading). Listen to these poems in Spanish is another level.

It's a stunning and delightful book. And the edition I read comes with a preface with lots of interesting information.

Is it possible to separate the author from the work?

Pablo Neruda was always that famous aura, which we know is important but I didn't know much about him. As predefined truths, he was a writer, active in politics, and well-known in the world. It's like Beethoven, everybody recognizes the name, but many people don't exactly know much about him.

I read more about him these days and came across a fact from his personal life that made me rethink some of his poems. It was almost the same feeling I had with Ernest Hemingway with his first wife story. As I said in another post, I'm writing from my time frame. I'm in Brazil in 2023 and I am giving my opinion on the work (a book about to turn 100 years old) of a very talented young writer from 1920s.

The fact is that the Chilean poet and politician had only one daughter, Malva Marina, who was born with hydrocephalus, and abandoned his wife and daughter shortly after birth. Not only that, he referred to her so meanly, and the woman and daughter starved without any help from him.

As I read in an article about the history of Malva Marina, this “watered down” my perception of the work. And I only managed to formulate the questions below to try to understand a little of the disappointment.

How much should a personal fact or attitude of an artist or writer affect the work? Is it possible to disassociate?

How can an author of such beautiful words be so insensitive? How to talk about intense love, if fraternal love is completely ignored?

How to judge a man of the 1930s by actions that are yet done by men in 2023? The reality is that in the 21st century, men continue to jump out of parental responsibility as if the woman had made the child alone.

How can the progressive man, on the left wing, have progressive positions only outside his home? When things are related to “my wife” and “my family”, everything is very sexist and irresponsible.

And in the air, we can feel the tenuous scent of brocialists: let's make poems of love and passion to pick up women. How can this not interfere with the perception of the poems?

About the Writer:

The Chilean poet and politician Pablo Neruda, pseudonym of Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto, was one of the great poets of the 20th century of the Western Canon. Since he was a child he was known for his ability with words, against his parents' wishes. He was a diplomat and played an important political role in Chile.

Other Books: 100 Love Sonnets (1959), Canto Geral (1950), Memoirs (1974) The Book of Questions (1974), All the Odes (1954), The Captain’s Verses (1952).