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The Separate Rose

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poetry, Chile, tr O'Daly, bilingual

64 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

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166 people want to read

About the author

Pablo Neruda

1,082 books9,622 followers
Pablo Neruda, born Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto in 1904 in Parral, Chile, was a poet, diplomat, and politician, widely considered one of the most influential literary figures of the 20th century. From an early age, he showed a deep passion for poetry, publishing his first works as a teenager. He adopted the pen name Pablo Neruda to avoid disapproval from his father, who discouraged his literary ambitions. His breakthrough came with Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, 1924), a collection of deeply emotional and sensual poetry that gained international recognition and remains one of his most celebrated works.
Neruda’s career took him beyond literature into diplomacy, a path that allowed him to travel extensively and engage with political movements around the world. Beginning in 1927, he served in various consular posts in Asia and later in Spain, where he witnessed the Spanish Civil War and became an outspoken advocate for the Republican cause. His experiences led him to embrace communism, a commitment that would shape much of his later poetry and political activism. His collection España en el corazón (Spain in Our Hearts, 1937) reflected his deep sorrow over the war and marked a shift toward politically engaged writing.
Returning to Chile, he was elected to the Senate in 1945 as a member of the Communist Party. However, his vocal opposition to the repressive policies of President Gabriel Gonzalez Videla led to his exile. During this period, he traveled through various countries, including Argentina, Mexico, and the Soviet Union, further cementing his status as a global literary and political figure. It was during these years that he wrote Canto General (1950), an epic work chronicling Latin American history and the struggles of its people.
Neruda’s return to Chile in 1952 marked a new phase in his life, balancing political activity with a prolific literary output. He remained a staunch supporter of socialist ideals and later developed a close relationship with Salvador Allende, who appointed him as Chile’s ambassador to France in 1970. The following year, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, recognized for the scope and impact of his poetry. His later years were marked by illness, and he died in 1973, just days after the military coup that overthrew Allende. His legacy endures, not only in his vast body of work but also in his influence on literature, political thought, and the cultural identity of Latin America.

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
Profile Image for Steven Godin.
2,782 reviews3,389 followers
July 31, 2021

O tower of light, sad beauty
that magnified necklaces and statues in the sea,
calcareous eye, insignia of the vast waters, cry
of the mourning petrel, tooth of the sea, wife
of the Oceanian wind, O separate rose
from the long stem of the trampled bush
that the depths converted into archipelago,
O natural star, green diadem,
alone in your lonesome dynasty,
still unattainable, elusive, desolate
like one drop, like one grape, like the sea.
Profile Image for Fernanda Otero.
243 reviews56 followers
February 16, 2022
La verdad es que creo que es el poemario de Neruda con el que menos he conectado, no me malinterpreten lo increíble de su pluma esta ahí pero, son una colección de poemas de la Isla de Pascua ya qué pasó un tiempo ahí 🙌🏻
Profile Image for Helena.
239 reviews
Read
December 23, 2021
thank you to pink eye for allowing me to finish so many books. This was not exactly what I wanted or expected but I did learn a lot about Easter island
Profile Image for Laura.
Author 7 books30 followers
December 27, 2015
This lovely little book just hums in my hand. It is a perfect example why the physical book will and must survive. I can't imagine the same pleasure interacting with this book as an e-book, missing the velvety smooth pages, the side by side tanslation.

This book presents a series of poems, or one long poem, that Neruda wrote near the end of his life as an ode to Easter Island. I've always been intrigued by Easter Island and have read fiction and non-fiction dealing with it as a destination and as the enigma, but nothing has the spiritual and lyrical strength of these beautifully crafted poems.
Profile Image for marina.
91 reviews
August 5, 2022
J’essaie de me mettre a la poésie car c’est très grave comme j’y connais rien pitié

Après avoir lu Confieso que he vivido de Pablo Neruda je me suis dis lets go!!! Du coup c’était sympa, ça se lit vite et peut-être que je les relirais en espagnol hihi
Profile Image for Chloe.
13 reviews2 followers
February 17, 2013
This book explores Neruda's love and obsession with Easter Island, a land he visited 2 years before his death. Divided into two different perspectives, one of "Men" and one of "The Island," Neruda writes of his desire to be a part of the island, and to have his roots and body engraved into the land's soil. He knows, however, that this could never be, as Man's presence in this land would altar and kill the spirit of The Island. It was really great to read in one sitting; you get the full effect that way. I also loved the harsh transition between the tone of The Island's poems and Man's poems, which shows how fantastic the translator is at what he does. It was beautiful to read.
Profile Image for Alexa Cascade.
81 reviews19 followers
February 28, 2008
One of Pablo Neruda's last works, published posthumously. Haunting study of man and nature through his experience and mythologizing of Easter Island. It's bilingual, so if you can, read the Spanish aloud so you can hear the music and rhyme of the original language.
Profile Image for Tara.
75 reviews2 followers
May 20, 2016
Beautiful poems about Easter Island. Neruda's unique transitions from the spirit of "the man" to "the island" are jarring and fantastic. Love how the Spanish text and the English translation are side-by-side.
Profile Image for Sarah.
30 reviews4 followers
January 2, 2009
Poems ripe with natural beauty & consideration of what humans do to the environment.
119 reviews
March 18, 2012
Dialog between faded, scattered, grand nature and corrupt, clutching, culpable man. "Llegamos hasta lejos, hasta lejos..." Compelling, compassionate images.
Profile Image for David Anthony Sam.
Author 13 books25 followers
March 27, 2019
This is the second volume of Neruda's poetry translated by William O'Daly that I have read, and it is also finely crafted and moving. Neruda takes Easter Island as his subject, the island in half the poems, the humans who live on it, have been part of its history, or visit it as the other half. This interplay of land and time and human experience offers Neruda a chance "to begin the lives of my life again," an echo of Whitman's "I contain multitudes."

The language is simple but eloquent, sometimes blunt. The poet offers criticism with whimsical yet acerbic comparisons:

"we transport ourselves sin enormous aluminum geese,
seated correctly, drinking sour cocktails,
descending rows of friendly stomachs.

But the poet is ultimately forgiving to the humans as they face their individual journeys toward's time end, as the civilization that made the great stone heads has died away. And those stone heads represent the ineffable that we face, not always with grace:

We all arrive by different streets,
by unequal languages, at Silence.

...we ceaseless talkers of the world
come from all corners and spit in your lava,
we arrive full of conflicts, arguments, blood,
weeping and indigestion, wars and peach trees,
in small rows of soured friendships, of hypocritical
smiles, brought together by the sky's dice
upon the table of your silence.

Neruda's conceit of the island of stone heads gives him the opportunity to talk about our experience anywhere on this world, the universality of our facing the unknowable as tourists face these black, unmoving stone visages. It takes a courage most of us lack to stare into them with knowing unknowing:

But let no one reveal the world to us, for we acquire
oblivion, nothing but dreams of air,
and all that's left is an aftertaste of blood and dust
on the tongue...

Neruda himself faced illness and the overthrow of hopeful democracy in Chile by the military, followed by his own exile. That all certainly colors his mood. Nonetheless, his words and their able translation by O'Daly challenge us wherever we are to look into the else of stone silence, and make meaning from that oblivion.
Profile Image for ET.
109 reviews4 followers
September 30, 2024
Me propuse leer los ocho libros póstumos que dejó Neruda en su escritorio antes de morir (por ahí hay un par más que vinieron después, pero no viene al caso para este propósito). Este libro no me resultó tan atrapante como otros, quizás porque se nota mucho que fue hecho contra el tiempo y además constituye una exploración emocional de un pesimismo diferente al que se observa en otros poemarios (por ejemplo, está a años luz de Residencia en la Tierra, que es más existencial). De todas formas es interesante desde donde se para: un turista cualquiera (como cualquier otro turista), avergonzado de la falta de respeto ante la inmensidad y grandiosidad de Rapa Nui, tratando de abarcar en toda la magnitud de su recuerdo lo que vio en la isla, frente a la mediocridad de una vida que no necesariamente se eligió vivir como la está viviendo. Se reconoce una otredad que no se conoció a tiempo. Es duro, pues, ¿cómo se continúa?

XIX. Los hombres

Volvemos apresurados a esperar nombramientos,
exasperantes publicaciones, discusiones amargas,
fermentos, guerras, enfermedades, música
que nos ataca y nos golpea sin tregua,
entramos a nuestros batallones de nuevo,
aunque todos se unían para declararnos muertos:
aquí estamos otra vez con nuestra falsa sonrisa,
dijimos, exasperados ante el posible olvido,
mientras allá en la isla sin palmeras,
allá donde se recortan las narices de piedra
como triángulos trazados a pleno cielo y sal,
allí, en el minúsculo ombligo de los mares,
dejamos olvidada la última pureza,
el espacio, el asombro de aquellas compañías
que levantan su piedra desnuda, su verdad,
sin que nadie se atreva a amarlas, a convivir con ellas,
y ésa es mi cobardía, aquí doy testimonio:
no me sentí capaz sino de transitorios
edificios, y en esta capital sin paredes
hecha de luz, de sal, de piedra y pensamiento,
como todos miré y abandoné asustado
la limpia claridad de la mitología,
las estatuas rodeadas por el silencio azul.
Profile Image for SA.
1,158 reviews
April 3, 2019
A fine translation of a challenging, late work by Neruda. I really appreciate that Copper Canyon makes a point of putting the original poem opposite the translation, that those with Spanish can compare the two. Also, Neruda's poems absolutely hum in Spanish, so I tend to read aloud the original version while reading through the translation.

You see a different Neruda here than the poems he is rightly famous for -- this is a man who has seen struggle in his life, who has strived for good and found heartbreak. The way he uses his trip to Easter Island both as a vehicle for wrestling with his bitterness, as well as a love song to perceived paradise, speaks to his genius.

I don't this The Separate Rose is for everyone, but if you have been asi-asi on Neruda because you think he's all love poetry, give this a try. (And then try some of his love poetry.)
Profile Image for bia.
63 reviews3 followers
April 25, 2020
i had never read a book in spanish, so this was a first! my edition had portuguese and spanish input back to back, but i didnt need to check the translation too often thankfully. i like how much neruda cares about that island, the weight and importance he puts on the marble rocks as if they signified the divine, the forgotten roots of man, holiness that comes from the earth. i like his mythological views and purity described in his poems pertaining to la isla, just as much as i like his near psycho and sociological analysis of himself and men in his poems de los hombres. amongst my favourite passage, this one struck me as one of the most powerful esthetic imagery i can remember from the book:

" en la noche espantosa vi caer
la luz del Villarica fulminando las vacas,
torrencial abrasando plantas y campamentos,
crepitar derribando peñascos en la hoguera."
Profile Image for amanda abel.
425 reviews24 followers
August 31, 2023
“I feel suited only to the most temporary / structures, and in this capitol without walls / of light, of salt, of stone and contemplation, / frightened like everybody else, I saw and gave up / the clear light of mythology, / the statues bathed in blue silence.”

This collection is centered on Easter Island and reflects on man’s impact and place on the world while exploring the history and mythical presences of the statues and ancestors there. I was much more taken with the poems titled “Men” rather than “The Island.” The purpose of this collection is clearer now that I’ve read the intro (I always wait til after) and find that he visited the island and wrote these poems after his cancer diagnosis. Always grateful for some more Neruda.
Profile Image for Benjamin Wallace.
Author 5 books22 followers
October 11, 2019
I don't ponder upon what Pablo Neruda took with him to Easter Island too often, though I often find myself pondering upon what he took with him when leaving. This poetry is beautiful, it feels, at times, like I'm reading the poetry through low clouds or mist. Neruda takes time to open up to what it is he's feeling and finding here around the statues of ever stoic and still faces, facing a ravaging sea forever. A mind like Neruda's.. I wish I could know what he had to say, outside of his beautiful poetry that says nearly everything.
Profile Image for simone.
111 reviews3 followers
Read
November 18, 2024
O tower of light, sad beauty that magnified necklaces and statues in the sea, calcareous eye, insignia of the vast waters, cry of the mourning perel, tooth of the sea, wife of the Oceanian wind, o separate rose from the long stem of the trampled bush that the depths converted into archipelago, o natural star, green diadem, alone in your lonesome dynasty, still unattainable, elusive, desolate like one drop, like one grape, like the sea.

Profile Image for Marelyn Diana Gonzalez.
26 reviews
April 3, 2022


“...si todos fueran sabios de golpe y acudieramos/ a Rapa Nui, la mataríamos,/ la mataríamos con inmensas pisadas, con dialectos,/ escupos, batallas, religiones,/ y allí también se acabaría el aire,/ caerían al suelo las estatuas,/ se harían palos sucios las narices de piedra/ y todo moriría amargamente.” 62
Profile Image for Camila Andrade.
97 reviews
September 24, 2022
«aquí estamos otra vez con nuestra falsa sonrisa,

dijimos, exasperados ante el posible olvido,

mientras allá en la isla sin palmeras,

allá donde se recortan las narices de piedra

como triángulos trazados a pleno cielo y sal,

allí, en el minúsculo ombligo de los mares,

dejamos olvidada la pureza»
81 reviews
November 9, 2017
Obra póstuma y en ese sentido no tan acabada la idea, pero indiscutiblemente notoria la maestría del gran poeta. Original planteamiento de analogía de la isla de Pascua con la soledad atávica del hombre.
Profile Image for Jere..
533 reviews5 followers
October 23, 2021
1


Regresamos . Y este adiós, prodigado y perdido es uno más, un adiós sin más solemnidad que la que allí se queda: la indiferencia inmóvil en el centro del mar: cien miradas de piedra que miran hacia adentro y hacia la eternidad del horizonte.
Profile Image for Yuri Ulrych.
106 reviews2 followers
March 21, 2022
Livro de poemas 1972

Homenagem a Ilha de Páscoa, território chileno conhecido pelo nome nativo de Rapa Nui, localiza-se nas ilhas polinésias da Oceania. Essa pequena porção de terra inclui quase novecentos monumentos moais, dorsos e cabeças gigantes esculpidas na pedra ao sol do século XIII ao XVII. Na época das grandes navegações, tal lugar era conhecido como umbigo do mundo ou de a fronteira do céu, como turista, Pablo Neruda percorre a ilha alarmado com o crescimento da especulação imobiliária no local. Diário poético de viagem, ao chegar de navio, o poeta registra suas impressões, nessa escrita, o poeta divide o livro em poemas chamados de "A Ilha", e outros poemas chamados de "Os homens". Ponte da dualidade, no reciclar de si mesmo, interpretação da natureza integrada a cultura esquecida, Pablo Neruda vai às raízes dos problemas neocoloniais da atual presença humana. Vulcão onde os deuses puseram seus pés, em seu silêncio, a ilha guarda o segredo da paz.

Informações extras: os polinésios chegaram a ilha por volta do ano 1000 d.C, esta possui 163km², tamanho de meia Belo Horizonte. Ponto mais isolado do mundo, situando-se a 3,6 mil km da América do Sul e a 2 mil km da ilha mais próxima, Pitcairn. Os moais eram esculpidos aos pés do vulcão Rano Raraku, estátuas de 2 a 10 metros, pesando 80 toneladas. O transporte dos monumentos sempre foi uma dúvida surreal, pois certamente assustava os navegadores distantes que viam de longe alguns gigantes de pedra andando na ilha. No auge, a população chegou a 20.000 habitantes, povo escravizado pelos holandeses no século XVI, a ilha também sofreu pelo desastre ecológico e pela guerra de tribos rivais. Em 1877, a população nativa cairia para 100, hoje 3.304 habitantes.

(Yuri Ulrych)
Profile Image for Kika23.
131 reviews3 followers
September 22, 2024
Me lo encontré en un local al que fui a comer y lo leí entre bocado y bocado. No me encantó y, comparado con otros libros de Neruda, me pareció pálido y desalado. Pero sí conecté con su mensaje y por eso le doy tres estrellitas.
Profile Image for Roselyn Blonger.
592 reviews5 followers
January 3, 2021
"Regresamos. Y este adiós, prodigado y perdido
es uno más, un adiós
sin más solemnidad que la que allí se queda:
la indiferencia inmóvil en el centro del mar:
cien miradas de piedra que miran hacia adentro
y hacia la eternidad del horizonte."


No fue de mis favoritos, sólo lo salva que sea tan corto y no se pierda mucho tiempo releyéndolo para escribir un review jaja.
Profile Image for Brian Wasserman.
204 reviews9 followers
July 8, 2017
terrible translation, awkward clumsy english.. sure you can glean the message of the poem
I think ive come to realize william o'daly is not a good translator

Profile Image for C.
39 reviews
September 14, 2025
The translation by William O’Daly is poor. In nearly every poem he makes some poor wording choice; for example, choosing words like “distant”, implying far away, when really Neruda meant that the writer’s voice was “alone”. Or in another verse, the translator uses the phrase “solitary confinement”, when the original text had no such thing, instead referring to Neruda’s inability to communicate. Other times the translator makes up words entirely, writing “soon they’ll see where they went wrong”, when the original text is just the word “disappointed”.
 
As for Neruda and the poetry itself, I feel like the overall theme exotifies the Rapanui, with terms like “purity”, “sacred”, and “mysterious” that give me (an indigenous person to the Americas) the iCK.

The verses also use repetitive terms and imagery, without much to separate one from the other. Took me quite awhile to get through such a short book, as it got quite dull after it starts to run together.
Profile Image for Xavier Mora.
7 reviews
February 11, 2019
Un libro a fuego lento. En cada hoja se puede palpar la sensación de soledad, teniendo como fondo a la Isla de Pascua. Neruda vuelve a darnos un respiro para desonectar del día a día y hacernos sentir como si estuviéramos en la otra punta del mundo.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews

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