Paublo Neruda Poet

Valentine’s Day is, among other things, a day for poets. One of the great poets, I would submit, is Paublo Neruda, who could describe his love of an onion with the same passion as he describes lovers in this poem.

Who is your favorite poet?

First, alittle background on the Poet…

Pablo Neruda     Born Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto in Parral, Chile in 1904, Neruda (his pen name, and later legal name) rose to become one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. His poetry includes love poems, historical epics and political manifestos. Neruda was both poet and political activist with the communist party.  Although it was controversial because of his political activism, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. He died in 1973 at the age of 69.   It is his poetry which continues to speak to generations of all ages and backgrounds. Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez (author of Love in the time of Cholera), as called Neruda “the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language.”
For you lovers, here is his Sonnet XVII, written in 1960

I don’t love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don’t know any other way of loving
But this, in which there is no I or you,

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