Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon: Selected Poems of Pablo Neruda

( 2 )

All Available Formats + Editions

$1.68

$11.18

Paperback

$7.23

$11.18

Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon: Selected Poems of Pablo Neruda (P.S. Series) (Reprint) Pub. Date: 6/30/2009 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

$1.68

——

Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon: Selected Poems of Pablo Neruda (1ST HARPER) Pub. Date: 2/28/1998 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Want to read this on your NOOK? Request as NOOK Book from the publisher

Thank you for requesting this book as a NOOK book from the publisher.

Customers Who Bought This Also Bought

ADVERTISING

Overview

Praise for Stephen Mitchell's translation of Rilke:

"Perhaps the most beautiful group of poetic translations this century has produced."
— Chicago Tribune

"This is, without any doubt, the best English rendering of Rilke. It is as faithful to the original as the translation of poetry can hope to be, faithful not only to its linguistic meaning but to its poetic expressiveness."

— Erich Heller, Poetry

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780060928773
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date: 2/28/1998
Edition description: 1ST HARPER
Edition number: 192
Pages: 304
Series: P.S. Series
Product dimensions: 5.54 (w) x 8.24 (h) x 0.82 (d)

Meet the Author

Pablo Neruda

When presenting the legendary Chilean poet Pablo Neruda with the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971, Karl Ragnar Gierow of the Swedish Academy proclaimed, "Neruda is like catching a condor with a butterfly net. Neruda, in a nutshell, is an unreasonable proposition: the kernel bursts the shell."

Biography

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), whose real name is Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, was born on 12 July, 1904, in the town of Parral in Chile. His father was a railway employee and his mother, who died shortly after his birth, a teacher. Some years later his father, who had then moved to the town of Temuco, remarried Doña Trinidad Candia Malverde. The poet spent his childhood and youth in Temuco, where he also got to know Gabriela Mistral, head of the girls' secondary school, who took a liking to him. At the early age of thirteen he began to contribute some articles to the daily "La Mañana," among them, Entusiasmo y Perseverancia -- his first publication -- and his first poem. In 1920, he became a contributor to the literary journal "Selva Austral" under the pen name of Pablo Neruda, which he adopted in memory of the Czechoslovak poet Jan Neruda (1834-1891). Some of the poems Neruda wrote at that time are to be found in his first published book: Crepusculario (1923). The following year saw the publication of Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada, one of his best-known and most translated works. Alongside his literary activities, Neruda studied French and pedagogy at the University of Chile in Santiago.

Between 1927 and 1935, the government put him in charge of a number of honorary consulships, which took him to Burma, Ceylon, Java, Singapore, Buenos Aires, Barcelona, and Madrid. His poetic production during that difficult period included, among other works, the collection of esoteric surrealistic poems, Residencia en la tierra (1933), which marked his literary breakthrough.

The Spanish Civil War and the murder of García Lorca, whom Neruda knew, affected him strongly and made him join the Republican movement, first in Spain, and later in France, where he started working on his collection of poems España en el corazón (1937). The same year he returned to his native country, to which he had been recalled, and his poetry during the following period was characterized by an orientation towards political and social matters. España en el corazón had a great impact by virtue of its being printed in the middle of the front during the civil war.

In 1939, Neruda was appointed consul for the Spanish emigration, residing in Paris, and, shortly afterwards, consul general in Mexico, where he rewrote his "Canto general de Chile," transforming it into an epic poem about the whole South American continent, its nature, its people and its historical destiny. This work, entitled Canto general, was published in Mexico 1950, and also underground in Chile. It consists of approximately 250 poems brought together into fifteen literary cycles and constitutes the central part of Neruda's production. Shortly after its publication, Canto general was translated into some ten languages. Nearly all these poems were created in a difficult situation, when Neruda was living abroad.

In 1943, Neruda returned to Chile, and in 1945 he was elected senator of the Republic, also joining the Communist Party of Chile. Due to his protests against President González Videla's repressive policy against striking miners in 1947, he had to live underground in his own country for two years until he managed to leave in 1949. After living in different European countries he returned home in 1952. A great deal of what he published during that period bears the stamp of his political activities; one example is Las uvas y el viento (1954), which can be regarded as the diary of Neruda's exile. In Odas elementales (1954-1959) his message is expanded into a more extensive description of the world, where the objects of the hymns -- things, events and relations -- are duly presented in alphabetic form.

Neruda's production is exceptionally extensive. For example, his Obras completas, constantly republished, comprised 459 pages in 1951; in 1962 the number of pages was 1,925, and in 1968 it amounted to 3,237, in two volumes. Among his works of the last few years can be mentioned Cien sonetos de amor (1959), which includes poems dedicated to his wife, Matilde Urrutia, Memorial de Isla Negra, a poetic work of an autobiographic character in five volumes, published on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday, Arte de pajáros (1966), La Barcarola (1967), the play Fulgor y muerte de Joaquín Murieta (1967), Las manos del día (1968), Fin del mundo (1969), Las piedras del cielo (1970), and La espada encendida.

Pablo Neruda died in 1973.

© The Nobel Foundation 1971

Good To Know

Always a political activist, Neruda was an anarchist for a time, but joined the Communist Party of Chile in 1945. He actually ran for president of Chile but eventually left the race to support Salvador Allende.

He had three wives throughout his lifetime: Mar a Antonieta Hagenaar, Delia de Carril, and Matilde Urrutia. He married Mar in 1930, but they divorced in 1936. He lived with Carril from the 1930s until they divorced in 1955 (they married in 1943). In 1966, he married Urrutia.

Neruda owned three homes in Chile that are open today as museums: "La Chascona" in Santiago, "La Sebastiana" in Valpara, and "Casa de Isla Negra" in Isla Negra, where he and his third wife, Matilde Urrutia, are buried.

1. Also Known As:
  
  Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto (real name)
1. Date of Birth:
  
  July 12, 1904
2. Place of Birth:
  
  Parral, Chile
1. Date of Death:
  
  September 23, 1973
2. Place of Death:
  
  Santiago, Chile

Read an Excerpt

Some Beasts

It was the twilight of the iguana.

From the rainbow-arched battlements
his tongue like a dart
plunged into the greenness,
the monastic ant-swarm walked
through the jungle with melodious feet,
the guanaco, thin as oxygen
in the wide gray heights,
moved wearing boots of gold,
while the llama opened his guileless
eyes in the transparency
of a world filled with dew.
The monkeys braided a thread
endlessly erotic
along the shores of the dawn,
demolishing walls of pollen
and scaring off the violet flight
of the butterflies of Muzo.
It was the night of the alligators,
the night pure and pullulating
with snouts emerging from the slime,
and out of the sleepy marshes
an opaque noise of armor
returned to the earth it came from.

The jaguar touched the leaves
with his phosphorescent absence,
the puma runs on the branches
like a devouring fire
while inside him burn
the jungle's alcoholic eyes.

The badgers scratch the feet
of the river, sniff out the nest
whose throbbing delight
they'll attack with red teeth.

And in the depths of the all-powerful water,
like the circle of the earth,
lies the giant anaconda,
covered with ritual mud,
devouring and religious.

	Foreword
	Some Beasts	3
	Ode to the Artichoke	9
	Ode to Bird-Watching	15
	Ode to the Book (I)	25
	Ode to the Book (II)	31
	Ode to a Chestnut on the Ground	39
	Ode to Laziness	45
	Ode to the Onion	51
	Ode to My Suit	57
	Ode to the Tomato	63
	Ode to Cesar Vallejo	69
	Ode to Watch in the Night	77
	Ode to Wine	83
	Ode to the Yellow Bird	89
	Ode to the Hummingbird	99
	Ode to the Seagull	107
	Ode to My Socks	113
	Ode to the Bee	121
	Ode to the Black Panther	131
	Ode to the Lemon	137
	Ode to the Rooster	141
	Ode to Salt	149
	Keeping Quiet	155
	Horses	159
	To the Foot from Its Child	163
	Cats' Dream	167
	Too Many Names	171
	Through a Closed Mouth the Flies Enter	175
	Bestiary	179
	Ode to the Cat	191
	Ode to the Watermelon	199
	from One Hundred Love Sonnets (1960): XII	207
	from One Hundred Love Sonnets (1960): XVII	209
	The Word	213
	Ocean	219
	Water	221
	The Sea	223
	It Is Born	225
	Standing Naked	227
	Bird	229
	Serenade	231
	To Wash a Child	233
	Ode to Ironing	235
	Births	237
	Spring	241
	To Don Asterio Alarcon, Chronometrist of Valparaiso	243
	Ode to Acario Cotapos	249
	The Night in Isla Negra	257
	To Sadness	259
	Acknowledgments	263

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 5

( 2 )

Rating Distribution

( 2 )
( 0 )
( 0 )
( 0 )
( 0 )

If you've bought this product, tell the world how you liked it.

Write a Review

Anonymous

Posted April 8, 2010

I Also Recommend:

Superb translation, beautiful imagery...

This collection is by far one of the best translated collections I've ever read. Stephen Mitchell (who has also created a brilliant translation of "Gilgamesh") makes Neruda sound as fluid and lush in English as he sounds in Spanish. As someone with a degree in both English and Spanish literature, I can tell you that the translations of these poems are quite accurate, but more importantly, they flow well and naturally, and are some of the most beautiful and sensual poems I've read in any language.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
Anonymous

Posted February 5, 2003

The Ecstasy that is Neruda...

No one can capture passion in its primal ecstasy and perfection in quite the way that Neruda can. Neruda's poetry in this book overflows... with joy and sensuality. He transcends mere literature or poetry and hits the core essence of the human experience.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

If you find inappropriate content, please report it to Barnes & Noble

Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon: Selected Poems of Pablo Neruda

Overview

All Available Formats + Editions

Customers Who Bought This Also Bought

More About This Book

Overview

Product Details

Meet the Author

Pablo Neruda

Biography

Good To Know

Read an Excerpt

Table of Contents

Rating Distribution

Superb translation, beautiful imagery...

The Ecstasy that is Neruda...