Selected Poems

About this book

In his long life as a poet Pablo Neruda succeeded in becoming what many poets have aspired to but never achieved: a public voice a voice not just for the people of his country but for his entire continent. Widely translated he probably reached more readers than any poet in history; justly so for as he often said his poets obligation was to become a voice for all those who had no voice an aspiration that stemmed from his long-time commitment to the communist faith. Born in 1904 in the rainy south of Chile he enjoyed from an early age the luck of attention. One of his first books "Twenty Love Poems" became a bible for lovers in the Spanish language and confirmed him in his poets vocation. At the same time he pursued a lifelong career as a diplomat serving in a series of consular posts in the Far East and Europe. In 1971 while serving as Chilean ambassador to France he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. In a famous essay "On Impure Poetry" Neruda calls for a poetry as impure as old clothes as a body with its foodstains and its shame with wrinkles observations dreams wakefulness prophesies declarations of love and hate stupidities shocks idylls political beliefs negations doubts affirmations and taxes.