Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

About this book

Published in 1924, when Pablo Neruda was only twenty years old, this striking collection of love poems has proven to be the Nobel Laureate's most popular work. The sensual imagery and heartbreaking verse have inspired lovers and lovers of poetry for nearly a century. This translation by J. Simon Harris captures the fire of the original and stays true to the poetry. This edition includes the original Spanish text of the poems on facing pages, as well as an introduction to the poet and the poems.Excerpt: Poem 4The morning is full of tempestin the heart of the summer.Like white handkerchiefs of adiós, the clouds wander, the wind whips them with its wanderer hands.Innumerable heart of the windbeating over our enamored silence.Whirring, buzzing among the trees, orchestral and divine, like a language, a tongue full of wars and of songs.Wind that carries, in rapid theft, the fallen leavesand dissuades the pulsing arrows of the birds.Wind that topples her in a wave without frothand substance without weight, and fires inclined.Breaks and submerges her mass of kissescombated in the door of the wind of the summer.