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Neruda and Vallejo: Selected Poems
Book by Pablo Neruda, Cesar Vallejo
269 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1970
39 people are currently reading
397 people want to read
About the author
Robert Bly
284 books414 followersRobert Bly was an American poet, author, activist and leader of the Mythopoetic Men's Movement.
Robert Bly was born in western Minnesota in 1926 to parents of Norwegian stock. He enlisted in the Navy in 1944 and spent two years there. After one year at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, he transferred to Harvard and thereby joined the famous group of writers who were undergraduates at that time, which included Donald Hall, Adrienne Rich, Kenneth Koch, John Ashbery, Harold Brodky, George Plimpton, and John Hawkes. He graduated in 1950 and spent the next few years in New York living, as they say, hand to mouth.
Beginning in 1954, he took two years at the University of Iowa at the Writers Workshop along with W. D. Snodgrass, Donald Justice, and others. In 1956 he received a Fulbright grant to travel to Norway and translate Norwegian poetry into English. While there he found not only his relatives but the work of a number of major poets whose force was not present in the United States, among them Pablo Neruda, Cesar Vallejo, Gunnar Ekelof, Georg Trakl and Harry Martinson. He determined then to start a literary magazine for poetry translation in the United States and so begin The Fifties and The Sixties and The Seventies, which introduced many of these poets to the writers of his generation, and published as well essays on American poets and insults to those deserving. During this time he lived on a farm in Minnesota with his wife and children.
In 1966 he co-founded American Writers Against the Vietnam War and led much of the opposition among writers to that war. When he won the National Book Award for The Light Around the Body, he contributed the prize money to the Resistance. During the 70s he published eleven books of poetry, essays, and translations, celebrating the power of myth, Indian ecstatic poetry, meditation, and storytelling. During the 80s he published Loving a Woman in Two Worlds, The Wingéd Life: Selected Poems and Prose of Thoreau,The Man in the Black Coat Turns, and A Little Book on the Human Shadow.
His work Iron John: A Book About Men is an international bestseller which has been translated into many languages. He frequently does workshops for men with James Hillman and others, and workshops for men and women with Marion Woodman. He and his wife Ruth, along with the storyteller Gioia Timpanelli, frequently conduct seminars on European fairy tales. In the early 90s, with James Hillman and Michael Meade, he edited The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, an anthology of poems from the men's work. Since then he has edited The Darkness Around Us Is Deep: Selected Poems of William Stafford, and The Soul Is Here for Its Own Joy, a collection of sacred poetry from many cultures.
Robert Bly was born in western Minnesota in 1926 to parents of Norwegian stock. He enlisted in the Navy in 1944 and spent two years there. After one year at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, he transferred to Harvard and thereby joined the famous group of writers who were undergraduates at that time, which included Donald Hall, Adrienne Rich, Kenneth Koch, John Ashbery, Harold Brodky, George Plimpton, and John Hawkes. He graduated in 1950 and spent the next few years in New York living, as they say, hand to mouth.
Beginning in 1954, he took two years at the University of Iowa at the Writers Workshop along with W. D. Snodgrass, Donald Justice, and others. In 1956 he received a Fulbright grant to travel to Norway and translate Norwegian poetry into English. While there he found not only his relatives but the work of a number of major poets whose force was not present in the United States, among them Pablo Neruda, Cesar Vallejo, Gunnar Ekelof, Georg Trakl and Harry Martinson. He determined then to start a literary magazine for poetry translation in the United States and so begin The Fifties and The Sixties and The Seventies, which introduced many of these poets to the writers of his generation, and published as well essays on American poets and insults to those deserving. During this time he lived on a farm in Minnesota with his wife and children.
In 1966 he co-founded American Writers Against the Vietnam War and led much of the opposition among writers to that war. When he won the National Book Award for The Light Around the Body, he contributed the prize money to the Resistance. During the 70s he published eleven books of poetry, essays, and translations, celebrating the power of myth, Indian ecstatic poetry, meditation, and storytelling. During the 80s he published Loving a Woman in Two Worlds, The Wingéd Life: Selected Poems and Prose of Thoreau,The Man in the Black Coat Turns, and A Little Book on the Human Shadow.
His work Iron John: A Book About Men is an international bestseller which has been translated into many languages. He frequently does workshops for men with James Hillman and others, and workshops for men and women with Marion Woodman. He and his wife Ruth, along with the storyteller Gioia Timpanelli, frequently conduct seminars on European fairy tales. In the early 90s, with James Hillman and Michael Meade, he edited The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, an anthology of poems from the men's work. Since then he has edited The Darkness Around Us Is Deep: Selected Poems of William Stafford, and The Soul Is Here for Its Own Joy, a collection of sacred poetry from many cultures.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
April 2, 2015
After so many things, after so many hazy miles,
not sure which kingdom it is, not knowing the terrain,
traveling with pitiful hopes,
and lying companions, and suspicious dreams,
I love the firmness that still survives in my eyes,
I hear my heart beating as if I were riding a horse,
I bite the sleeping fire and the ruined salt,
and at night, when the darkness is thick, and morning
furtive,
I imagine I am the one keeping watch on the far shore
of the encampments, the traveler armed with his sterile
defenses,
caught between growing shadows
and shivering Wings, and my arm made of stone protects me.
There's a confused altar among the sciences of tears
and in my twilight meditations with no perfume,
and in my deserted sleeping rooms where the moon lives
and the spiders that belong to me, and the destructions I am
fond of,
I love my own lost self, my faulty stuff,
my silver wound, and my eternal loss.
The damp grapes burned, and their funereal water
is still flickering, is still with us,
and the sterile inheritance, and the treacherous home.
Who performed a ceremony of ashes?
Who loved the lost thing, who sheltered the last thing of all?
The father's bone, the dead ship's timber,
and his own end, his flight,
his melancholy power, his god that had bad luck?
I lie in wait, then, for what is not alive and what is
suffering,
and the extraordinary testimony I bring forward,
With brutal efficiency and written down in the ashes
is the form of oblivion that I prefer,
the name I give to the earth, the value of my dreams,
the endless abundance which I distribute
with my wintry eyes, every day this world goes on.
—Pablo Neruda,"Sonata and Destructions"
*
This afternoon it rains as never before; and I
don’t feel like staying alive, heart.
This afternoon is pleasant. Why shouldn’t it be?
It is wearing grace and pain; it is dressed like a woman.
—Cesar Vallejo,from "Down to the Dregs"
not sure which kingdom it is, not knowing the terrain,
traveling with pitiful hopes,
and lying companions, and suspicious dreams,
I love the firmness that still survives in my eyes,
I hear my heart beating as if I were riding a horse,
I bite the sleeping fire and the ruined salt,
and at night, when the darkness is thick, and morning
furtive,
I imagine I am the one keeping watch on the far shore
of the encampments, the traveler armed with his sterile
defenses,
caught between growing shadows
and shivering Wings, and my arm made of stone protects me.
There's a confused altar among the sciences of tears
and in my twilight meditations with no perfume,
and in my deserted sleeping rooms where the moon lives
and the spiders that belong to me, and the destructions I am
fond of,
I love my own lost self, my faulty stuff,
my silver wound, and my eternal loss.
The damp grapes burned, and their funereal water
is still flickering, is still with us,
and the sterile inheritance, and the treacherous home.
Who performed a ceremony of ashes?
Who loved the lost thing, who sheltered the last thing of all?
The father's bone, the dead ship's timber,
and his own end, his flight,
his melancholy power, his god that had bad luck?
I lie in wait, then, for what is not alive and what is
suffering,
and the extraordinary testimony I bring forward,
With brutal efficiency and written down in the ashes
is the form of oblivion that I prefer,
the name I give to the earth, the value of my dreams,
the endless abundance which I distribute
with my wintry eyes, every day this world goes on.
—Pablo Neruda,"Sonata and Destructions"
*
This afternoon it rains as never before; and I
don’t feel like staying alive, heart.
This afternoon is pleasant. Why shouldn’t it be?
It is wearing grace and pain; it is dressed like a woman.
—Cesar Vallejo,from "Down to the Dregs"
March 16, 2009
This book is a earthy gift like a pinecone.
June 17, 2017
This book took me a long time to finish, because I took full advantage of the fact that it had the original Spanish as well as an English translation for each poem. I really like that set-up, which lets me read the parts I can handle in Spanish, but still be able to understand those that are beyond my capabilities.
As for the poems themselves, I liked many of those by Neruda, though there were some I still didn't understand, even in English. I liked fewer of Vallejo's poems, though, and had to push myself to keep reading them.
As for the poems themselves, I liked many of those by Neruda, though there were some I still didn't understand, even in English. I liked fewer of Vallejo's poems, though, and had to push myself to keep reading them.
October 29, 2024
i was more interested in Vallejo when writing this but Neruda poems were definitely the standout here, especially with the poems from Residencia en la tierra
Nothing But Death
There are cemeteries that are lonely,
graves full of bones that do not make a sound,
the heart moving through a tunnel,
in it darkness, darkness, darkness,
like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves,
as though we were drowning inside our hearts,
as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul.
And there are corpses,
feet made of cold and sticky clay,
death is inside the bones,
like a barking where there are no dogs,
coming out from bells somewhere, from graves somewhere,
growing in the damp air like tears of rain.
Sometimes I see alone
coffins under sail,
embarking with the pale dead, with women that have dead hair,
with bakers who are as white as angels,
and pensive young girls married to notary publics,
caskets sailing up the vertical river of the dead,
the river of dark purple,
moving upstream with sails filled out by the sound of death,
filled by the sound of death which is silence.
Death arrives among all that sound
like a shoe with no foot in it, like a suit with no man in it,
comes and knocks, using a ring with no stone in it, with no
finger in it,
comes and shouts with no mouth, with no tongue, with no
throat.
Nevertheless its steps can be heard
and its clothing makes a hushed sound, like a tree.
I'm not sure, I understand only a little, I can hardly see,
but it seems to me that its singing has the color of damp violets,
of violets that are at home in the earth,
because the face of death is green,
and the look death gives is green,
with the penetrating dampness of a violet leaf
and the somber color of embittered winter.
But death also goes through the world dressed as a broom,
lapping the floor, looking for dead bodies,
death is inside the broom,
the broom is the tongue of death looking for corpses,
it is the needle of death looking for thread.
Death is inside the folding cots:
it spends its life sleeping on the slow mattresses,
in the black blankets, and suddenly breathes out:
it blows out a mournful sound that swells the sheets,
and the beds go sailing toward a port
where death is waiting, dressed like an admiral.
Nothing But Death
There are cemeteries that are lonely,
graves full of bones that do not make a sound,
the heart moving through a tunnel,
in it darkness, darkness, darkness,
like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves,
as though we were drowning inside our hearts,
as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul.
And there are corpses,
feet made of cold and sticky clay,
death is inside the bones,
like a barking where there are no dogs,
coming out from bells somewhere, from graves somewhere,
growing in the damp air like tears of rain.
Sometimes I see alone
coffins under sail,
embarking with the pale dead, with women that have dead hair,
with bakers who are as white as angels,
and pensive young girls married to notary publics,
caskets sailing up the vertical river of the dead,
the river of dark purple,
moving upstream with sails filled out by the sound of death,
filled by the sound of death which is silence.
Death arrives among all that sound
like a shoe with no foot in it, like a suit with no man in it,
comes and knocks, using a ring with no stone in it, with no
finger in it,
comes and shouts with no mouth, with no tongue, with no
throat.
Nevertheless its steps can be heard
and its clothing makes a hushed sound, like a tree.
I'm not sure, I understand only a little, I can hardly see,
but it seems to me that its singing has the color of damp violets,
of violets that are at home in the earth,
because the face of death is green,
and the look death gives is green,
with the penetrating dampness of a violet leaf
and the somber color of embittered winter.
But death also goes through the world dressed as a broom,
lapping the floor, looking for dead bodies,
death is inside the broom,
the broom is the tongue of death looking for corpses,
it is the needle of death looking for thread.
Death is inside the folding cots:
it spends its life sleeping on the slow mattresses,
in the black blankets, and suddenly breathes out:
it blows out a mournful sound that swells the sheets,
and the beds go sailing toward a port
where death is waiting, dressed like an admiral.
January 25, 2024
Neruda - Most white poets of his time wrote depressing stuff, citing current political climates and hardships as their drive for writing poetry. I like that a lot of Neruda's works are simply inspired by day to day life, the mundane, despite being so embroiled in political affairs. He shows so much love for life - strangers, experiences, air, a flimsy watch, and my favorite - watermelon! A lot of his poems make you love life and he really makes you live through his poetry. My two fav poems by him in this were the ode to watermelon (of course) and the United fruit company (the parallel drawn between capitalism and colonialism was so real, white rich people continue to exploit people and their lands for their own benefits).
Vallejo - I love sad, existential stuff so of course I enjoyed his poems. The man was definitely crazy. There were lots of bold statements and some metaphors that weren't obvious, unless you're really trying to decipher it.
All in all, I can see the influences of Walt Whitman on these two, and those of Neruda on Vallejo and vice versa.
Vallejo - I love sad, existential stuff so of course I enjoyed his poems. The man was definitely crazy. There were lots of bold statements and some metaphors that weren't obvious, unless you're really trying to decipher it.
All in all, I can see the influences of Walt Whitman on these two, and those of Neruda on Vallejo and vice versa.
September 27, 2020
Pablo Neruda is one of my favorite poets, and Cesar Vallejo was one of the few poets works I still hadn't read but planned to. When I came across this collection I was overjoyed, especially since Neruda is already one of my favorite poets. I knew at the bat that I would end up enjoying Vallejo's poems in this book, being since he was in a compiled book with Neruda.
There was a mix of Neruda's poems - a few from his Residencia books, and a few from when he got more into politics. I personally enjoyed most his earlier work. The imagery always takes my breath away.
When I got to the Vallejo section, right from the first poem, I was inlove. He's such a beautiful poet. I ended up bookmarking more of his poems than Neruda's. I love how both poets have a way of capturing their inner souls and also capturing nature and the world around them.
There was a mix of Neruda's poems - a few from his Residencia books, and a few from when he got more into politics. I personally enjoyed most his earlier work. The imagery always takes my breath away.
When I got to the Vallejo section, right from the first poem, I was inlove. He's such a beautiful poet. I ended up bookmarking more of his poems than Neruda's. I love how both poets have a way of capturing their inner souls and also capturing nature and the world around them.
June 15, 2018
3 3/4 stars
April 3, 2023
partial reading
April 6, 2017
This collection is informative. I bought it because I love Neruda's love poems and interested to read his other poems. This collection comprises of his more political poems. Maybe other people will love it. But I'm not really into political poems that's why I planned to rate it two stars.
However, this is my first time to read Vallejo. And i was entranced with the way he writes poetry. So I decided to give this collection three stars.
This is one of Vallejo's poem that I like
XV
In the corner, where we slept together
so many nights, I've sat down now
to take a walk. The bedstead of the dead lovers
has been taken away, or what could have happened.
you came early for other things
but you're gone now. This is the corner
where i read one night, by your side,
between your tender breasts
a story by daudet. it is the corner
we loved. dont confuse it with any other
I've started to think about those days
of summer gone, with you entering and leaving,
little and fed up, pale through the rooms
on this rainy night
already far from both of us, all at once i jump...
there are two doors, swinging open, shut,
two doors in the wind, back and forth
shadow to shadow
However, this is my first time to read Vallejo. And i was entranced with the way he writes poetry. So I decided to give this collection three stars.
This is one of Vallejo's poem that I like
XV
In the corner, where we slept together
so many nights, I've sat down now
to take a walk. The bedstead of the dead lovers
has been taken away, or what could have happened.
you came early for other things
but you're gone now. This is the corner
where i read one night, by your side,
between your tender breasts
a story by daudet. it is the corner
we loved. dont confuse it with any other
I've started to think about those days
of summer gone, with you entering and leaving,
little and fed up, pale through the rooms
on this rainy night
already far from both of us, all at once i jump...
there are two doors, swinging open, shut,
two doors in the wind, back and forth
shadow to shadow
October 3, 2015
Bly on Neruda, Stunning!
Robert Bly really "gets" Neruda. He beautifully describes the life and heart and soul of this man who lived in and wrote from the limitless view experienced from the depths of the subconscious mind. Like Jonas Salk, and many other great men, Neruda learned in this aware state that we are all one, that all of humanity is part of a glorious tapestry, each of us a thread, and that we are all here for the betterment of the rest. Salk gave us the elimination of a horrible disease, Neruda gave the gift of his insight and love in poems left at the feet of every man to honor each one and lift him up from his struggles.
Robert Bly really "gets" Neruda. He beautifully describes the life and heart and soul of this man who lived in and wrote from the limitless view experienced from the depths of the subconscious mind. Like Jonas Salk, and many other great men, Neruda learned in this aware state that we are all one, that all of humanity is part of a glorious tapestry, each of us a thread, and that we are all here for the betterment of the rest. Salk gave us the elimination of a horrible disease, Neruda gave the gift of his insight and love in poems left at the feet of every man to honor each one and lift him up from his struggles.
March 3, 2014
i got this when a school we visited for an away AQT game was getting rid of their books, and my friend and i gleefully loaded up our backpacks feeling like we were making off with illicit drugs. this was a year ago? over? and i've been reading through little by little. i always want to /have/ copies of poetry, you know? novels you remember easier, but poetry depends so much on the phrasing and the setting of just this word against just this one and its too many details for my squashed up brain to keep track of, so its nice to have copies of poetry :)
November 1, 2009
Not my favorite translations, but includes several nice interviews. ACI English Library weekend raid success. Someone received this copy from a girlfriend and the margins are filled with merde. It's hard to put back, but I have no claim to rights over the supplementary "Things you should know" chapter.
July 21, 2007
Excellent collection of their work.
September 6, 2009
My professor in college gave me this book as a gift. It's beautiful.
June 22, 2015
Moving to The Poetry Pile. I am still reading these poems, dipping in and out.
Want to read
April 4, 2015I love Neruda but wasn't aware of this one till I read this review --- on my list to find and read soon.
http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/10/...
http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/10/...
January 29, 2017
Pablo Neruda already tops my list of great poets, but discovering Cesar Vallejo was a treat. Sad that he "died in Paris on a rainy day," just as he said he would, at the young age of 46.
April 29, 2017
This is a book of poems in Spanish with English translations (so probably only counts for half a book for me, but oh well), which I was assigned in college, but certainly didn't read all of. In fact, I only remembered one poem, which was "Ode to Salt" by Pablo Neruda. It's still my favorite. I remember thinking I had no idea salt was so big.
"taste recognizes
the ocean in each salted morsel,
and therefore the smallest,
the tiniest
wave of the shaker
brings home to us
not only your domestic whiteness
but the inward flavor of the infinite."
It's a really interesting poem, and I like his other two odes here as well. Unfortunately, I couldn't relate to the rest of this collection as much as the odes, probably because odes tend to be fairly concrete, and Neruda can be quite surreal.
I just have a hard time with surreal writing. Even when the images are interesting, the poems can be hard for me to follow without rhyme, meter, repetition, or any kind of thread holding them together. And reading poems in translation is difficult anyway, because many aspects are lost or diluted in translation.
However, I did find Neruda's poems on South American history interesting. In that case surrealism was anchored somewhat in actual events, and that helped me to appreciate it. Overall I liked Neruda's later works better than his earlier ones.
I think I enjoyed Vallejo's earlier poems better, but it's hard to say. His poems seemed to have more structure than Neruda's, and there were a few I really liked. "To My Brother Miguel" was especially sad and moving. Toward the end, his got harder for me to understand and follow.
I was thinking though, that South America is probably one of the continents I've read the fewest authors from--I should do something about that. So I'm glad I kept this book around to re-read, even if I had a hard time with some of the imagery.
"taste recognizes
the ocean in each salted morsel,
and therefore the smallest,
the tiniest
wave of the shaker
brings home to us
not only your domestic whiteness
but the inward flavor of the infinite."
It's a really interesting poem, and I like his other two odes here as well. Unfortunately, I couldn't relate to the rest of this collection as much as the odes, probably because odes tend to be fairly concrete, and Neruda can be quite surreal.
I just have a hard time with surreal writing. Even when the images are interesting, the poems can be hard for me to follow without rhyme, meter, repetition, or any kind of thread holding them together. And reading poems in translation is difficult anyway, because many aspects are lost or diluted in translation.
However, I did find Neruda's poems on South American history interesting. In that case surrealism was anchored somewhat in actual events, and that helped me to appreciate it. Overall I liked Neruda's later works better than his earlier ones.
I think I enjoyed Vallejo's earlier poems better, but it's hard to say. His poems seemed to have more structure than Neruda's, and there were a few I really liked. "To My Brother Miguel" was especially sad and moving. Toward the end, his got harder for me to understand and follow.
I was thinking though, that South America is probably one of the continents I've read the fewest authors from--I should do something about that. So I'm glad I kept this book around to re-read, even if I had a hard time with some of the imagery.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews