Neruda Was Not A Saint...

Neruda Poem (in English) Milos Bjelic Miljak :

ISLA NEGRAThe Black Island. (A dedicatory poem to Pablo Neruda)* Neruda’s Isla Negra ** his refuge and inspiration is not an ocean island on the vast Pacific coast nor is it really black; but only by its name, or except for fishermen and swimmers, sometimes. And Pablo Neruda was not the name of the poet, except for his poetry, nor was he born in Isla Negra

but in a Chilean small town Parral where he as a kid then from father a locomotive driver and from the steam iron engines, while dreaming about them and listening to their long and sonorous whistles, the zest for travel acquired. Ricardo Neftali Reyes Basoalto – and later by himself Pablo Neruda renamed, poet and Chilean, or perhaps vice versa, on the Chilean Pacific shores for the first time had listened: ”... the Ocean waves cannonade while violating there shores..”. *** There the young Ricardo was reborn and, like poet Neruda, had sung his marine verses dedicated to the Pacific Ocean might: ”... I reject any unknown sea which waves ignore how to kill...”. Later, in Isla Negra, while contemplating the Ocean, a vast and unpredictable domain, beautiful and full of dangers, its unfathomable blue water, Neruda his lira had tuned and that way his poetry emerged.

During his early life Neruda, as a young poet, a dreamer, penniless but full of ideas how to transform by poetry poverty in the native country and later, as a world traveler, a sailor without a vessel, or as a young envoy of Chile, human conditions and sufferings on planet Earth had witnessed and resolved to rebel. But even in early years as youth in native Chile and as a poet to be Neruda had learned: that because of rebellion due to poverty and hunger, stigmatizing injustice in verses and in political pamphlets, because of angry revolt, defiant opposition,

to prison can be condemned from the native country expelled put under torture, and even to death sentenced; just for using the verses, they words, as the bullets and so his fate was destined. ”... O Francesca, wherever could not I take you on the wings of my poetry..”. As a young poet Neruda ebony eyes señoritas, their fiery furtive glances, lips as a red rose bud, had decorated with verses and in his poems elevated: “… Twenty one love poems and one of desperation…”, as well as in his love sonnets full of passion and yearning since Shakespeare’s time unequalled. In one poem Neruda, twenty young then, intoxicated by sensual in women, sings the prurient love verses: ”Ah ... your breasts like pears, alienation in your eyes! Ah pink pubis! Ah the muttering lugubrious voice…” dreaming about them as cups ”.. where the wine of love desire as pure poetry is pouring in, bonfire of fulfilment on which my passion is burned ...”. And so, dreaming love dreams, Neruda his fate had started. Perhaps to any woman ever, such a necklace of sonnets as matured Neruda would plate, now the poet of ominous in woman: ”... In your arms I embrace all that exists beach sand, pure being, rain in the tree top...” and perhaps never again tell her: ”…that I do love you and that I do not the life itself is the dual way created ...” Neruda, as a poet of all existing, of real people, real events and objects, everything used to turn into verses:

“…Ode to wine; Ode to tomatoes; Ode to maize;…” all that was found in the land or in the vastness of Ocean: a poem about the fish , the shells, or the fiery verses to the flag of Chile: ”... Symbol of the struggle for justice flag lovingly weaved by the Chileans its pieces sewed together of their sufferings ...”. Neruda a World’s citizen became, on a ship or on the wings of poetry he sailed to the Ocean reaches, or to the tops of mountains to Peru’s Machu Pichu, where “…the ancient spirit of the Incas is mixed up with the clouds that Andean Cordilleras are crowning and condor as a black vessel is cruising…”. Than until Ceylon, as a Consul of Chile, where an Asian woman Neruda had married, for a few years. And again alone wandering wherever the mighty Pacific the sandy coasts are dashing and where the killing maremotos people and beaches are ravishing. His steps over the asphalts of New York, Paris, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, México City, you name it, were imprinted. In Moscow by Stalin was decorated; and later the Nobel price received by noble cool Swedes, wearing the black tie and with poetic speeches. With Castro and Che Guevara the flame of revolution and civil unrests predicated while he in native Chile, top literary honor for lyrics, before police arrest warrants, received**. Later, by smugglers’ footway, over the Andes had to escape, to Buenos Aires, where he was first arrested and than in the stars praised.

And in Madrid, Spain… Neruda had his ancestral Spain, its glory and its tragedy, in his heart and verses for ever enclosed and with the Spanish poets to sang with them had tuned. Spain with olive trees, green horses lost in the mountain, with don quixotes and sancho panzas, “...Spain in my heart...” Neruda had never forgotten and so his fate followed.

(Gustave Doré: Don Quixote of La Mancha and Sancho Panza, 1863)

In spite of wars and revolutions

“Allons enfants de la patrie...”, poetic verses as military trumpets, according to Neruda poetry should always be seen: “...an act of peace as the poets are from peace as the bread from flour formed ...”. But also they die in wars as Bayron and Petefi, with rifle in hand, or as Garcia Lorca in Spain with a verse in the heart. Lorca was brutally slained because he was a freedom poet and because his verses

as glaring fire were or as the stars in the night they shined. While there, in Spain, as Consul of Chile was, in the besieged Madrid with a notebook in hand, the civil war bestiality Neruda had recorded. And in his lyrics noted how the beloved Spain its people, its voice, its art had suffered and how: “... the war in Spain my poetry affected ... “. Whereupon to his Matilde the passionate love odes had written, Matilde with whom Neruda is now together buried in the salty ground of Isla Negra, lonely Pacific coast domain of sand , pebbles, and rocks, over which the waves are crushing; a modest tomb overlooking the Ocean, and, for ever, telling her in verses: ”... Matilde, my beloved, I do not want to sleep without your eyes nor to exist without their gaze ...” During the rest of his life, as poet and politician, with Allende as President of Chile, Neruda the Ambassador was named and in addition, the proud owner of tree houses became. While in the mean time, in passing, sea shells, bronze bells, wooden maidens from the wrecked boats, Neruda had collected. Along with adventures with women, falling in love again and again, until his final days. And, at the end of the road, in his autobiography admitted: ”... I confess that I lived my life ...”. One week only, terminally ill, Neruda had Allende survived

than from Isla Negra to Santiago he was taken to die in the clinic of Santa Maria. A battalion with the rifles, naked bayonets as sticks ready, was waiting under his last window; for fear that Neruda resuscitate and that his accusatory finger at the military rulers appoints. During his whole life Neruda, as much as Jean-Paul Sartre, in politics was engaged in the street struggle ventured, the establishment had challenged. But he never was a saint neither of the Heaven nor of a social paradise, nor his acts were always consistent. But never was reluctant to take side of the neediest; always, without hesitation to support the oppressed to raise his voice and verses against the injustice and subjugation and in support of common folks, of those living in slums, whose sickness rarely see a doctor nor their children a good teacher. While in their battle for bread Neruda participated, these verses as Psalms had forged: ”...We are going, little by little, all this in order to establish to oblige the sea and to oblige the land to create the miracle, because in ourselves in our common fight bread there is, fishes there are. And this is the miracle ...”. * *

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Thousands of visitors to Isla Negra now from Chile and from all over the planet are listening to the ocean waves artillery

against the rocky cost of Isla Negra where Neruda and Matilide are buried. On the deserted sea shore of the never wake dreamland there is now a marble tablet, above their dual tomb, on which their names are engraved. But nothing is at peace nor quiet on Isla Negra coast, as the spirit of the Poet, restless, seems still floating over the waves: ”..the atavistic night and the salt spread all over at the foundation of my house are knocking, lonely shadows, and the sky is to me to the ocean’ s heartbeat now reduced ...”. ************************************************** *********** * My poem “Isla Negra” - The Black Island in English – is written in the loose verse manner; giving preference to the rhythm and the free flow of lines, while making some use of poetic liberty. **Pablo Neruda (real name in Spanish: Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto) was born on 12 July 1904 in the small Chilean town Parral. He died in Isla Negra, a Chilean Pacific coast settlement on the very brink of the Ocean (that is why Isla Negra was named as an island). Neruda died as a consequence of a suddenly deteriorated illness (leukemia), on 23 September 1973. His death occurred several days after the violent death (probably a suicide) of the democratically elected President of Chile, Salvador Allende, as a consequence of the military coup that took place on 11 September of that year. During 1945 Neruda obtained Chilean “The National reward for Literature”. Nobel Prize for literature (poetry) was awarded to Neruda on 21 October 1971. In Isla Negra Neruda built a house (now a memorial museum); just above the sand and rocks on the ocean beach, where he had written most of his poetry. Two other houses, now also dedicated to Neruda, are in Santiago and in Valparaiso. *** Verses quoted here which are marked by cursive (and as “…”), are from Neruda’s various poems (see the Bibliography).

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Neruda in a Chilean national dress

Neruda’s memorial house – Isla Negra

Tomb of Neruda and Matilde Urrutia – Isla Negra

”... the Ocean waves cannonade while violating there shores..”. (A painting inspired by the Isla Negra coast).

Bibliography (selected):

Neruda during a USA visit 1966.

In English: • •

Pablo Neruda, Selected Poems, ed. Ilan Stavans (2003). Translating Neruda: The Way to Macchu Picchu, by John Felstiner (1980)

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Pablo Neruda / Durán, Manuel., 1981 Pablo Neruda: The Secrets of the Chilean Poet and Diplomat, 1981 Pablo Neruda: all poets the poet / Bizzarro, Salvatore., 1979 The poetry of Pablo Neruda / Costa, René de., 1979 Pablo Neruda: Memoirs (Confieso que he vivido: Memorias) / tr. St. Martin, Hardie., 1977 The Essential Neruda / ed. Mark Eisner, intro by Lawrence Ferlinghetti (City Lights), 2004 Paz and Neruda: A Clash of Literary Titans/ Americas Magazine, July 2008/ Jaime Perales Contreras World's End (Copper Canyon Press, 2009) (translated by William O'Daly) The Hands of the Day (Copper Canyon Press, 2008) (translated by William O'Daly) The Book of Questions (Copper Canyon Press, 1991, 2001) (translated by William O'Daly) The Yellow Heart (Copper Canyon Press, 1990, 2002) (translated by William O'Daly) Stones of the Sky (Copper Canyon Press, 1990, 2002) (translated by William O'Daly) The Sea and the Bells (Copper Canyon Press, 1988, 2002) (translated by William O'Daly) Winter Garden (Copper Canyon Press, 1987, 2002) (translated by James Nolan) The Separate Rose (Copper Canyon Press, 1985) (translated by William O'Daly) Still Another Day (Copper Canyon Press, 1984, 2005) (translated by William O'Daly) On the Blue Shore of Silence: Poems of the Sea (Rayo Harper Collins, 2004) (translated by Alastair Reid, epilogue Antonio Skármeta) Intimacies: Poems of Love (Harper Collins, 2008) (translated by Alastair Reid)

In Spanish: • • • • • • • • • • •

Crepusculario. Santiago, Ediciones Claridad, 1923. Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada. Santiago, Editorial Nascimento, 1924. Tentativa del hombre infinito. Santiago, Editorial Nascimento, 1926. Anillos Santiago, Editorial Nascimento, 1926. (Prosa poética de Pablo Neruda y Tomás Lago.) El hondero entusiasta Santiago, Empresa Letras, 1933. El habitante y su esperanza. Novela. Santiago, Editorial Nascimento, 1926. Residencia en la tierra (1925–1931). Madrid, Ediciones del Árbol, 1935. España en el corazón. Himno a las glorias del pueblo en la guerra: (1936–1937). Santiago, Ediciones Ercilla, 1937. Nuevo canto de amor a Stalingrado. México, 1943. Tercera residencia (1935–1945). Buenos Aires, Losada, 1947. Canto general. México, Talleres Gráficos de la Nación, 1950.

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Los versos del capitán. Imprenta L'Arte Tipografica, Napoli, 1952, 184 pp. Todo el amor. Santiago, Editorial Nascimento, 1953. Las uvas y el viento. Santiago, Editorial Nascimento, 1954. Odas elementales. Buenos Aires, Editorial Losada, 1954. Nuevas odas elementales. Buenos Aires, Editorial Losada, 1955. Tercer libro de las odas. Buenos Aires, Losada, 1957. Estravagario. Buenos Aires, Editorial Losada, 1958. Navegaciones y regresos Buenos Aires, Editorial Losada, 1959. Cien sonetos de amor. Santiago, Editorial Universitaria, 1959. Canción de gesta. La Habana, Imprenta Nacional de Cuba, 1960. Poesías: Las piedras de Chile. Buenos Aires, Editorial Losada, 1960.Las Piedras de Pablo Neruda Cantos ceremoniales. Buenos Aires, Losada, 1961. Memorial de Isla Negra. Buenos Aires, Losada, 1964. 5 volúmenes. Arte de pájaros. Santiago, Ediciones Sociedad de Amigos del Arte Contemporáneo, 1966. Fulgor y muerte de Joaquín Murieta. Santiago, Zig-Zag, 1967. La obra fue escrita con la intención de servir de libreto para una ópera de Sergio Ortega. La Barcarola. Buenos Aires, Losada, 1967. Las manos del día. Buenos Aires, Losada, 1968. Comiendo en Hungría. Editorial Lumen, Barcelona, 1969. (En co-autoría con Miguel Ángel Asturias) Fin del mundo. Santiago, Edición de la Sociedad de Arte Contemporáneo, 1969. Con Ilustraciones de Mario Carreño, Nemesio Antúnez, Pedro Millar, María Martner, Julio Escámez y Osvaldo Guayasamín. Aún. Editorial Nascimento, Santiago, 1969. Maremoto. Santiago, Sociedad de Arte Contemporáneo, 1970. Con Xilografías a color de Carin Oldfelt Hjertonsson. La espada encendida. Buenos Aires, Losada, 1970. Las piedras del cielo. Editorial Losada, Buenos Aires, 1970. Discurso de Estocolmo. Alpignano, Italia, A. Tallone, 1972. Geografía infructuosa Buenos Aires, Editorial Losada, 1972. La rosa separada. Éditions du Dragon, Paris, 1972 con grabados de Enrique Zañartu. Incitación al Nixonicidio y alabanza de la revolución chilena. Santiago, Empresa Editora Nacional Quimantú, Santiago, 1973. Geografía de Pablo Neruda. Editorial Aymá, Barcelona, 1973. Glosas autógrafas de Neruda, Fotos de Sara Facio y Alicia D'Amico. El mar y las campanas. Editorial Losada, Buenos Aires, 1973 2000. Editorial Losada, Buenos Aires, 1974

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Elegía. Editorial Losada, Buenos Aires, 1974. El corazón amarillo. Editorial Losada, Buenos Aires, 1974 Jardín de invierno. Editorial Losada, Buenos Aires, 1974. Confieso que he vivido. Memorias. Barcelona, Seix Barral, 1974. (autobiografía) Cartas de amor de Pablo Neruda. Ediciones Rodas, Madrid, 1975. Para nacer he nacido. Editorial Seix Barral, Barcelona, 1978. Cartas a Laura. Centro Iberoamericano de Cooperación, Madrid, 1978. Poesías escogidas. Biblioteca Premios Nobel. Aguilar S.A. de ediciones, 1980. El río invisible Editorial Seix Barral, Barcelona, 1980.

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Neruda/Eandi, Correspondencia durante Residencia en la tierra. Editorial Sudamericana, Buenos Aires, 1980. El fin del viaje. Editorial Seix Barral, Barcelona, 1982. Pablo Neruda, Discursos Parlamentarios. (1945-1948). Editorial Antártica, Santiago, 1997. Pablo Neruda, Cuadernos de Temuco Seix Barral, Buenos Aires. Pablo Neruda, Prólogos. Editorial Sudamericana, Santiago, 2000. Pablo Neruda, Epistolario viajero. (1927-1973)Editorial RIL, Santiago, 2004. Pablo Neruda en O’Cruzeiro Internacional. Editorial Puerto de Palos, Santiago, 2004. Pablo Neruda. Yo respondo con mi obra: Conferencias, Discursos, Cartas, Declaraciones. (1932 - 1959). Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, España, 2004. David Bautista. Yo respondo con mi obra: tus ojos, Discursos, Cartas, Declaraciones. (1932 - 1959). Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, España, 2004. Pablo Neruda, J.M. Coetzee, W. Faulkner, Doris Lessing, G.G. Márquez, Discursos, Alpha Decay, Barcelona, 2008.