Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Jan Thompson Dicks (Illustrator), (Translator)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This collection of poems, first published by Neruda at the age of 19 in 1924, caused something of a scandal because of its frank and intense sexuality: "I have gone marking the atlas of your body / with crosses of fire. / My mouth went across: a spider, trying to hide. / In you, behind you, timid, driven by thirst." It later became one of Neruda's best-loved works, selling two million copies by the 1960s. Why? With image after arresting image, Neruda charts the oceanic movements of passion, repeatedly summoning imagery of the sea and weather: "On all sides I see your waist of fog, / and your silence hunts down my afflicted hours; / my kisses anchor, and my moist desire nests / in you with your arms of transparent stone." As irresistible as the sea, love is engulfing ("You swallowed everything, like distance. / . . . In you everything sank!"), but also departs as mysteriously as it arrived, leaving the poet's heart a "pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked." These unabashedly romantic poems, wonderfully translated by Merwin, are illustrated in this edition by the paintings of Jan Thompson Dicks with aptly Fauvist tones and iconic formality.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Verse collection by Pablo Neruda, published in 1924 as Veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada. The book immediately established the author's reputation and became one of the most widely read collections of poetry written in Spanish. The 20 love poems of the title poignantly describe remembered affairs with two women: a girl from the poet's native town of Temuco and a classmate at the University of Santiago. The collection begins with intensity, describing sensual passion that slackens into melancholy and detachment in the later verses. The closing poem, "A Song of Despair," hopelessly dwells upon bitter emotions. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 80 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books; FEP Cut Out edition (October 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811803201
• ISBN-13: 978-0811803205
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #391,435 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #26 in	Books > Literature & Fiction > Authors, A-Z > ( N ) > Neruda, Pablo
  #61 in	Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Carribean & Latin American
  #81 in	Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Love Poems

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars desire and longing, June 7, 2002

By	NotATameLion (Michigan) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair: Dual Language Edition (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) (Spanish and English Edition) (Paperback)

I am a newcomer to the poetry of Pablo Neruda. "Twenty Poems and a Song of Despair" is simply one of the best volumes of poetry I have ever read. What a vast horizon opened up to me when I picked up this book! Rarely have I encountered a poet that so palpably evokes longing. Few other poets have Neruda's ability to weave images. These poems burrow into the heart.

My Spanish is not what it should be, but I was able to read most of the poetry here in the original. For those who know no Spanish, do not be deterred. This volume is the work of not just one but two masterful poets. Merwin's translations are amazing and wholly recommendable. Striking images and a yearning spirit fill the English translations as well as Neruda's originals.

I was also caught off guard by poem XVI. I was reading along, thinking how I had not read poetry this full of longing and desire since I last read Tagore's "Gitanjali" ..., when lo and behold, Poem XVI is a Spanish paraphrase of a Tagore poem...small world.

Neruda's poems are of filled with a powerful Eros. Yet, to me, they fall a little short in comparison to those of Tagore (whose love is a spiritual longing). However, the comparison is clearly between two giants of the art.

I give "Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair" a strong recommendation.

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars LUSH, March 3, 2000

By	Andy Todes (Haddonfield, NJ United States) - See all my reviews

take the one-minute neruda test: "i want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees." there, how'd that feel? good, great, fantastic? plenty more where that came from.

39 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A writer that makes me want to learn Spanish, August 17, 2000

By	Art History Professor (The wonderful Midwest) - See all my reviews

I have always been thankful that English is my first language, for I would hate to read a translated version of a Shakespeare play. Neruda (and perhaps Gabriel Garcia Marquez) is one writer that makes me wish I could read Spanish, for as amazing as his poems are in the translated English (and the are amazing), they must be pure and unabashed magic in their original language. Neruda is able to write on emotions that we occassionaly feel, and often long about, but can seldom work into spoken (yet alone written) words. By far, my favorite in this book of poems is Number 20, which has come to be known as "Tonight I Can Write..." Only after losing the love that I thought would last forever did the words "Love is so short, forgetting so long" sincerely ring true. Neruda's poems in general are amazing, and his ability to capture human emotions is remarkable.