Pablo Neruda's Houses

Saturday afternoon driving along in the car listening to Radio National the weekly program 'Poetica' came on! After a trip to the Botanic Gardens at Mt Coot-tha, a wonderful long conversation with one of the librarians, and time enjoying the sunshine and fresh greens of this location following a week of wind and rain a mellow mood had descended already when I tuned into 'Poetica' and was soon was transported away by the day's story on Pablo Neruda... long a favorite of mine.

One of a great many publications

It was such a pleasure to hear a favourite being read on this program and learn more on where Neruda had lived and what had some inspired some key works and developments in his life. I have included this poem below. In my previous home going back a few years now I had written the first stanza of the work  'Poesia' or 'Poetry' above the picture rail when painting deep blue/greys in this section of wall. That had curiously brought a quiet presence to the room that inspirited it somehow!

you cant read the text but you can maybe just see it above the picture rail!

Poetry

And it was at that age ... Poetry arrived in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where it came from, from winter or a river. I don't know how or when, no they were not voices, they were not words, nor silence, but from a street I was summoned, from the branches of night, abruptly from the others, among violent fires or returning alone, there I was without a face and it touched me. I did not know what to say, my mouth had no way with names, my eyes were blind, and something started in my soul, fever or forgotten wings, and I made my own way, deciphering that fire, and I wrote the first faint line, faint, without substance, pure nonsense, pure wisdom of someone who knows nothing, and suddenly I saw the heavens unfastened and open, planets, palpitating plantations, shadow perforated, riddled with arrows, fire and flowers, the winding night, the universe. And I, infinitesimal being, drunk with the great starry void, likeness, image of mystery, felt myself a pure part of the abyss, I wheeled with the stars, my heart broke loose on the wind.  Pablo Neruda

More work by Neruda can be read through this site - PoemHunter.com

Isla Negra...by the sea

The rafters in Pablo Neruda's studio.
(found here)

About Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda during a Library of Congress
recoding session, June 20, 1966

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) held diplomatic posts in Asian and European countries. After joining the Communist Party, Neruda was elected to the Chilean Senate but was forced to live in exile in Mexico for several years. Eventually he established a permanent home on Isla Negra. In 1970 he was appointed as Chile's ambassador to France; in 1971 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Below is the link with text to the Saturday Program. You should be able to listen to the show for the next month... after that Im not sure. You can also click to see the images of one of the houses.

Neruda's Houses

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Pablo Neruda's Houses
View the image gallery

A feature on Neruda's eccentric homes and the poetry he wrote there.

Neruda's Houses is written and narrated by Brisbane author Greg Lewis. Greg looks at the eccentric houses the famous poet Pablo Neruda built in his native Chile: La Chascona, La Sebastiana and Isla Negra, as well as his childhood homes, and the houses he lived in while working as a diplomat in Burma in the 1920s and Spain during the civil war. We'll also hear Neruda's poems that were written in these residences or relate closely to them.

Greg Lewis turned his hand to literary commentary and poetry after many years as a boxing writer. He's written for The Hardy Society Journal, Australian Reader and Speedpoets. Greg married his wife in Chile last year and took time out from his honeymoon to visit Neruda's houses, and gather the material for this program.

Neruda's poems are read in Spanish and English by Simon Palomares.

Sound engineers: Andrea Hensing and Tom Henry
Production: Mike Ladd

List of poems:

House
Trans Gary Soto
From The Poetry of Pablo Neruda Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Poetry
Trans Alastair Reid
From Isla Negra Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Every Day, Matilde
Trans William O'Daly
From The Sea and the Bells, Copper Canyon Press

Port, this port of Valparaiso
Trans William O'Daly
From The Sea and the Bells, Copper Canyon Press

Rangoon 1927
Trans Alastair Reid
From Isla Negra, Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

I'm Explaining a Few Things
Trans Nathaniel Tarn
From Twentieth Century Latin American Poetry,
University of Texas Press

The Heights of Macchu Picchu, Part 6
Trans Nathaniel Tarn
From Twentieth Century Latin American Poetry,
University of Texas Press

a book written for children about the poet

another poem for you...  an excerpt:

Ode to the Dictionary 

I 

turn

its

pages:

caporal,

capote,

what a marvel

to pronounce these plosive

syllables,

and further on,

capsule,

unfilled, awaiting ambrosia or oil

and others,

capsicum, caption, capture,

comparison, capricorn,

words

as slippery as smooth grapes,

words exploding in the light

like dormant seeds waiting

in the vaults of vocabulary,

alive again, and giving life:

once again the heart distills them.

Dictionary, you are not a

tomb, sepulcher, grave

tumulus, mausoleum,

but guard and keeper,

hidden fire,

groves of rubies,

living eternity

of essence,

depository of language.

and a last thought....read more here:

A manifesto for writing down the bones of the world.

“It is good, at certain hours of the day and night, to look closely at the world of objects at rest. Wheels that have crossed long, dusty distances with their mineral and vegetable burdens, sacks from the coal bins, barrels, and baskets, handles and hafts for the carpenter’s tool chest. From them flow the contacts of man with the earth, like a text for all troubled lyricists. The used surfaces of things, the wear that the hands give to things, the air, tragic at times, pathetic at others, of such things—all lend a curious attactiveness to the reality of the world that should not be underprized.