|
|
Selected Odes Of Pablo NerudaStock informationGeneral Fields
Special Fields
DescriptionThe atom, a tuna, laziness, love - the everyday elements and essences of human experience glow in the translucent language of Neruda's odes. Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) wrote three books of odes during his lifetime. Odas elementales was published in 1954, followed in subsequent years by Nuevas odas elementales and Tercer libro de las odas. Margaret Sayers Peden's selection of odes from all three volumes, printed with the Spanish originals on facing pages, is by far the most extensive yet to appear in English. She vividly conveys the poet's vision of the realities of day-to-day life in her translations, while her brief introduction describes the genesis of the poems. To write simply of simple things was a task the poet undertook consciously, following his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, the 'social conversion' that resulted from a visit to Macchu Picchu, and the writing of his epic Canto general (California, forthcoming). The odes are arranged in brief, sinuous lines that flow down the page and connect the poet to the animal, mineral, and vegetable world, to people and objects, and to the landscape of history. |