"The call for a more accessible collection of Neruda's important poems is answered with City Lights' The Essential Neruda, a 200-page edition that offers 50 of Neruda's key poems. The editors and translators know how to extract gold from a lifetime of prolific writing. If you want a handy Neruda companion and don't know where to begin, this is it."
– The Bloomsbury Review

Yes, you can buy the book for a few less bucks on Amazon, but City Lights has given us a special deal to sell the books here, where all the proceeds go directly to furthering our projects--Inspired by Pablo, we strongly believe in the power of  literature to awaken consciousness. By becoming a member of Red Poppy (where you will get a copy of the DVD of our documentary and at other levels a copy of the Essential as well, or by simply buying The Essential through our site, you are helping us to promote cultural, social and environmental activism throughout the Americas.

"What better way to celebrate the hundred years of Neruda's glorious residence on our earth than this selection of crucial works - in both languages! - by one of the greatest poets of all time. A splendid way to begin a love affair with our Pablo or, having already succumbed to his infinite charms, revisit him passionately again and again and yet again."
– Ariel Dorfman, Pulitzer-prize winner author of "Death and the Maiden"

" ...The Essential Neruda will prove to be, for most readers, the best introduction to Neruda available in English. In fact, I can think of few other books that have given me so much delight so easily. At only 234 pages (bilingual), it somehow manages to convey the fullness of Neruda's poetic arc: Reading it is like reading the autobiography of a poetic sensibility (granted, the abridged version)."
– The Austin Chronicle

Esquire, June 2006, Tom Robbins' Favorite Beach Read: The Essential Neruda

Your purchase of the book on this site will help us finish the film - or - Join Red Poppy Today and Receive a Free Copy as a Gift.

In anticipation of Neruda’s 2004 Centennial, knowing the need for a new collection of more dynamic, artistic, and faithful translations, with a selection of many of Neruda’s most crucial and beautiful poems, Red Poppy’s Executive Director, Mark Eisner worked in a wide collaboration with the University of Chile’s Department of  Humanities, the Pablo Neruda Foundation, and some of the most outstanding poets, translators, and scholars around the world to create The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems, published appropriately by the legendary Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights. It is the best selling collection of Neruda in the United States.

It includes translations by former US Poet Laureate Robert Hass; noted poet and head of Brown’s Creative Writing Program, Forrest Gander; Stephen Mitchell, the famous translator of the Tao Te Ching, Rilke, and so many more; the acclaimed poet, editor, and translator Stephen Kessler; Stanford scholar John Felstiner; Neruda’s friend and favorite translator Alastair Reid; and Jack Hirschman, the current Poet Laureate of San Francisco. It is edited by Mark Eisner, whose translations also appear. Lawrence Ferlinghetti provides the introductory note.

Before writing a translation, one must read into the poem. You must digest the words and their meanings and let them flow back out like a jeweled river. And you will still have questions. Some will never be solved. The only person who can answer them is Neruda himself, if even he could. A translation is complicated with so many different possibilities. One poet can sense a poem differently than another does. There can be no “definitive” translation.

As Gregory Rabassa, extensive translator of Latin American literature from Mario Vargas Llosa to Gabriel García Marquez puts it: "a translation is never finished...it is open and could go on to infinity." While the original poet's pen frames the words, the translator transforms, but does not cast them. It is an ongoing procedure, an ongoing art, visiting previous attempts and choices, then molding them with new perspective.

Edmund Keeley, prominent translator of Greek poetry, wrote: "translation is a moveable feast...there must always be room for retouching and sharpening that image as new taste and new perception may indicate."
The discovery and affirmation of those new perceptions were achieved through this project’s collaborative effort. Scholars across both North and South America—Nerudianos—were asked to participate in the project, forming a bridge linking academics, editor, and poets.

The results are brilliant translations.

Through a special deal with City Lights, all proceeds of copies sold here on this site goes towards finishing the film and all of Red Poppy's other work. Click here to purchase a copy for yourself and/or family and friends (they make great gifts!) They can be signed by editor/translator Mark Eisner. Thank you.

Your copy can be signed to you or a friend by editor/translator Mark Eisner

Your purchase of the book on this site will help us finish the film!

RECEIVE A FREE COPY OF THE ESSENTIAL NERUDA WHEN YOU JOIN RED POPPY