A Little More on Pablo

Neruda is celebrated by Chileans--as a poet—to a degree that is truly rare on this planet. We in the North are not used to poets being such celebrities. Our great poets are revered and respected, but really only a small fraction of our society have read their poems. In Chile, though, everybody knows Neruda, everybody has read Neruda: miners, housewives, bakers, maids, school children. To his beloved Chilean people, to so many Latin Americans, Neruda is still the source of tremendous pride, regardless of one’s political orientation.

And Neruda was such a Chilean, such a Latin American, in how much he cared for his country, continent and its people. They were his cause, his pride and the most important audience for his poetry. Though he constantly traveled, he would always return to Chile (only living abroad while serving diplomatic positions).

Neruda's masterpiece, Canto General, is emblematic of his passion for his continent. The epic poem-- Canto, as in song-- is a class-based Marxist and humanistic interpretation of the history of the Americas, written as Neruda was developing his burgeoning pan-American consciousness and perspective.

“I live, I still live, and I think many of us live inside the world Neruda discovered,” Ariel Dorfman told me on a warm spring day on the Duke campus, where he is a Distinguished Professor of Literature, Latin American Studies and Theater. We had been discussing Canto General, in which, as Dorfman put it, “He basically named Latin America in a new way, and he claimed for Latin America the possibility of being lyrically and epically in a story of resistance. And what was very special about that for me was that he managed to understand that the struggle of the people for their liberation, for their full humanity, was parallel to the struggle of the nature of Latin America to be expressed, to be freed. . . to be shown.”

“From the political aesthetic point of view, Canto General has no equal,” Dorfman, who was exiled from Chile after Pinochet's 1973 coup, continued, “There's not one bad verse in Residencia en la tierra, but Canto General is full of verses I would sort of say, well hey, ‘they’re too propagandistic, bombastic.’ But when he hit the target in the Canto General, what he did was he redefined what America meant. América. Even North America, but particularly Latin America.”

Awesome in scope and simultaneously deeply probing, Canto General is considered by many to be one of the more important books in the whole cannon of the world’s poetry. And it extends well beyond the world of well-versed lovers of literature and academic scholars. In 2003, I went to a construction site on a new line of Santiago’s metro in order to interview workers about their thoughts on Neruda. There, José Corriel told me that Canto General was his favorite book by Neruda because it’s “la parte combativa de Neruda,” the combative side. “The importance of Canto General,” he said, “is that it shows us the Américas’ history from a different point of view.” Canto General, he explained, is told from “the point of view of the people themselves, not the history told by the conquerors. Yes, we could call it the ‘history told by the conquered.’"

The Canto's opening poem is appropriately titled, “Amor América (1400)”


Before the powdered wig and the dress coat,

were the rivers, arterial rivers,

were the cordilleras, on whose worn ripple

the condor or the snow seemed immobile:

there was humidity and thickness, the thunder

still without name, the planetary pampas.


Man was earth, earthen pot, eyelid

of tremulous mud, shape of clay—

he was Caribbean pitcher, chibchan stone,

imperial cup or Araucanian silica.

Tender and bloody he was, but in the hilt

of his moistened crystal weapon

the earth’s initials were

written.

No one could

remember them later: the wind

forgot them, the language of water

was buried, the keys were lost

or inundated by silence or blood.


Life was not lost, pastoral brothers.

But like a wild rose

a red drop fell on the thickness,

and a lamp on earth was extinguished.


I am here to tell the history.

From the peace of the buffalo

to the beaten sands

of the land’s end, in the accumulated

foam of the Antarctic light

….



My land without name, without América,

equinoctial stamen, purple lance,

your aroma climbed to me through my roots

into the goblet that I drank, into the thinnest

word still unborn in my mouth.


He indeed drank deeply from that cup, as Latin America's poetic essence flowed through the book's two hundred and thirty more poems, in which he named so much of both America's integrities and its external evils.

Canto General's literary roots are the lyrics of his hero Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, Dante’s Divine Comedy, the Mayan’s Popul Vuh and, as seen in “Amor América (1400),” the literature of the Bible. “Amor América (1400)” lays out Neruda’s idea of the American Genesis, a pre-Columbian Eden, before the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadores and the subsequent “imperialistic” foreign powers' injustices. In this Eden, as Neruda described it, all was pure, so natural that “Man was earth, earthen vase.”

The Europeans extinguished the ancient "lamp on earth," according to Neruda's thinking. He portrays the Spanish Conquest as a tragic injustice forced on “his” people, despite his European heritage. The Europeans, to him, were barbarous and ruthless. “Like a wild rose, a red drop fell on the thickness”--so ended America’s Edenic first phase of history. (The poet doesn't mention, though, the barberry that many pre-Columbian societies had ruthlessly enacted on others within the continent: the blood let by the Inca’s imperialism, the Aztec love of war, the Mayans` human sacrifices, the violence of Apache warriors. . . For he is not just invoking the peaceful indigenous of his land which would be called Chile, he is talking all of the Americas, “from the peace of the buffalo / to the beaten sands of the land’s end.”)

Neruda identifies himself with the indigenous people. “I searched for you, my father, young warrior of darkness and copper,” he writes in “Amor América (1400)”. In the poem, all indigenous people, peaceful and belligerent alike, are his “fathers”; he is their son. Pablo Neruda, though, was actually born Ricardo Eliecer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto, with no native names in his lineage, but rather Spanish family names, with Neftalí, from his mother, suggesting some Semitic roots.

In Canto General, the “pastoral hermanos” are his brothers, presented as the land itself:

My Araucanian fathers had no

crests of luminous plumes,

they did not rest on nuptial flowers,

they did not spin gold for the priest:

they were stone and tree, roots



"Earth and Man Unite"


Neruda is here to tell their story, to give name to that which was “without name, without América,” before the Spanish came.

Canto General attempts to find "the earth's initials," to uncover and display the lost keys to the conquered, to open new doors to justice. He is making a literary effort to give people back their lost voice.

* * *

When the bestselling Chilean novelist Isabel Allende fled her country after Pinochet's coup, she couldn't take much with her, "some clothes, family pictures, a small bag with dirt from my garden, and two books: Eduardo Galleano’s seminal Open Veins of Latin America, and an old edition of Pablo Neruda’s poetry. Like the bag of earth, with Neruda’s words I was taking a part of Chile with me, for Neruda was such a part of my country, such a part of the political dreams destroyed that day."

Neruda is one of history’s greatest examples of a soul rebel who used his pen as his sword in his constant fight for a better world. At his political core was a populism based on his fundamental belief that the common man, the worker, the poor, deserved a seat at the table as much as anybody else:


…Let us sit down soon to eat

with all those who haven’t eaten;

let us spread great tablecloths,

put salt in the lakes of the world,

set up planetary bakeries,

tables with strawberries in snow,

and a plate like the moon itself

from which we can all eat.


For now I ask no more

than the justice of eating.


(translated by and (C) Alastair Reid, from "Extravagario", Farrar, Strauss & Giroux)

(Isabel opens her narration of our documentary "Pablo Neruda: The Poet's Calling" with that quote)

("Open Veins of Latin America" was the book that Hugo Chavez gave President Obama at the Summit of the Americas)

Neruda's communism was not based on egalitarianism, but rather the equality of possibility.

Even as a teenager, witnessing the injustices against the indigenous and working class to which he was exposed, Neruda felt the poet’s calling-- el deber del poeta: an obligation, a duty, a debt he owed to give voice to the people through his poetry. He promised a commitment to humanitarianism, using literature to enrich, empower and engage in the pursuit of progressive social change.


(C) Mark Eisner from the book "Pablo Neruda: The Poet's Calling", forthcoming from W.W. Norton, Spring 2010

Hello, my name is Katia, and I am another member of the Red Poppy crew. If I had an official title, it would be something akin to Public Relations Assistant; in other words, I am a professional blogger. Every day, I read blogs that mention Neruda and comment on them, analyzing translations, interpreting poems on the basis of my own experience, and telling people about Red Poppy. Although this is no easy task, it has allowed me to learn a great deal about Neruda and how he is perceived.

The best thing about blogging is the opportunity to read Neruda on a daily basis. Of course, most people blog about his most popular works, so I often end up reading certain poems, such as Sonnet 17 ("I don't love you as if you were a rose..."), at least three times a week. Yet poetry, or rather how we react to it, changes with every reading, so I often pick up on things that I missed, as it were, before. And Neruda's works are so replete with unusual images and associations that multiple readings are practically essential for understanding.

At the same time, when people post lesser known works, such as Towards the Splendid City, the speech that Neruda gave when he received the Nobel Prize, I get to see his incredible versatility. Here is a writer that "covered" everything from the Spanish Civil War to artichokes, from the history of America (the entire Western Hemisphere) to the vicissitudes of love.

The second best thing about blogging is reading people's reactions to Neruda's work. Regardless of what it is they cite, people always marvel at the truthfulness of the author's style and express a certain connection to his words. It is this credibility that gives Neruda's works their constant relevance. His words appeal to us not as intellectual feats of intricacy, but as descriptions of the real world, of our common world. The beauty of his figurative language stems not from its unique linguistic twists, but from the unique, twisted reality it thereby conveys. The reason why people read and write about Neruda every day is because he recreates and reveals that which we thought we knew.

I especially love reading the creations that Neruda has inspired, from personal translations of his works to new poems written in his style. Some of these are pretty mediocre; others are fantastic. What fascinates me is people's eagerness to do this. I know from experience that writing and translating are no easy feats; in fact, they often demand every ounce of your mind, soul, and heart. So why engulf oneself in words that will probably not get published anywhere outside of the blogosphere? Because, as Neruda states in Toward the Splendid City,

"When I am recounting in this speech something about past events, when reliving on this occasion a never-forgotten occurrence...it is because in the course of my life I have always found somewhere the necessary support, the formula which had been waiting for me not in order to be petrified in my words but in order to explain me to myself."

It seems that Neruda's works have done for others what he wanted them to do for him: to provide an opportunity for self-discovery.

Welcome to Red Poppy's brand new blog!

We aim for this to be a forum on the power of the pen over the sword, using literature (especially poetry) to create progressive social change. That is the heart of Red Poppy's mission, as described in the header at the top of the blog. We encourage your comments on the posts to come, as we hope this virtual journal will spark active discussions, bringing in interesting insights from readers all over the world. In the coming months we will introduce more contributors to the blog, representing a wide spectrum of voices from leading poets, activists, students, and literature lovers at large.

Why "Pablo Neruda! Presente!"? Because the Chilean Nobel Laureate is our inspiration. Gabriel García Márquez called him “the greatest poet of the twentieth century—in any language.” But not only is his poetry so rich and moving, evocative and stirring, much of his work was aimed at raising the public's political conscience to the realities of the injustices facing not only his Latin America but the entire world.

As he once said, “From the Inca to the Indian, from the Aztec to the contemporary Mexican peasant, our homeland, Ameríca, has magnificent mountains, rivers, deserts and mines rich in minerals. Yet the inhabitants of this generous land live in great poverty. What then should be the poet’s duty?”

Neruda invented a new poetic voice, distinctively Americano, rooted in Latin America’s native cultures and untamed geography. From the first decades of the 20th Century, he wrestled poetry down from the rarified atmosphere of the salon and gave it to the people, a communal voice rooted in oral tradition, fired by raw passion and the struggle for justice. He is one of history’s greatest examples of a soul-rebel who used his pen as his sword in his constant fight for a better world.

At his political core was a populism based on his fundamental belief that the common man, the worker, the poor, deserved a seat at the table as much as anybody else:

…Let us sit down soon to eat
with all those who haven’t eaten;
let us spread great tablecloths,
put salt in the lakes of the world,
set up planetary bakeries,
tables with strawberries in snow,
and a plate like the moon itself
from which we can all eat.

For now I ask no more
than the justice of eating.


(The Great Tablecloth" from Estravagario, translated by Alastair Reid in Extravagaria. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1975.)

Even as a teenager, Neruda felt the poet’s calling-- el deber del poeta: an obligation, a duty, a debt he owed to give voice to the people through his poetry. He promised a commitment to humanitarianism, using literature to enrich, empower and engage in the pursuit of progressive social change.

Red Poppy is currently creating the first (in any language) feature-length documentary on Neruda's life, poetry, and politics. In 2004 we rushed to have a rough cut ready for the 100th anniversary of his birth. It was a wonderful success, receiving positive reviews from Variety, The San Francisco Chronicle, and others. It was shown at numerous festivals around the world, cultural organizations, and campuses from UCLA to the Grand Rapids Community College (MI) to Yale. It won the 2004 Latin American Studies Association's Award of Merit in Film.

But despite the great reception it received, in our rush to have it finished in time for the Centennial, the film is like a diamond in the rough. We are now polishing it, under the new name "Pablo Neruda: The Poet's Calling." The new version is being directed by the Mexican filmmaker Carlos Bolado, an integral member of the nuevo cine mexicano generation. Carlos was nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary of 2002 for "Promises," a film about Israeli and Palestinian children, which he directed and edited. His feature "Bajo California" won 7 Ariels, Mexico’s highest cinematic award, including Best Picture of 1999. Early on, he edited "Like Water for Chocolate," and later was an advising editor on "Amores Perros," starring Gael García Bernal. His next feature stars Alec Baldwin. Carlos brings the ideal passion, creativity, and expertise to make our film the lyrical, compelling, powerful, and important art for which we are striving.

But we also need your help to finish this important, powerful project. Red Poppy survives and grows due to the support of hundreds of members, and we hope you'll explore our site, www.redpoppy.net, and dig your hands into the fertile poetic garden we are cultivating. There you can also learn more about Neruda, the film, our other projects, and how you can help.

For now,
Paz, pan, flores y amor,
Mark Eisner, on behalf of the Red Poppy family.