National Poetry Month (Part 1): Pablo Neruda

It's that time o' the year, so it's time for Neruda.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez claimed Pablo Neruda was "the greatest poet of the twentieth century--in any language." Having a slight hold on the Spanish language, I have a difficult time disagreeing. Take Sonnet 66, por ejemplo:

I do not love you except (because) I love you:

I move from loving to not loving you;

waiting, not waiting for you--

back & forth, through my heart, from ice to fire. 

I only love (you) because I love you.

I love; I hate without end, and hating you 


pray to you, and the measure of my changing love

is not to see you but to love you blindly.

{Perhaps January's light will devour, 

its cruel-intentioned ray, my whole heart,

stealing the key to life's rest.}

In this history only I die, 

die of love because I love you,

because I love you, Love, in fire and in blood.*

Kind of hard to compete with that. 

*translation & photographie by Cora Charis