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Monday, February 21, 2022

Word Garden Word List #14 (Pablo Neruda)

 
 
 

 
 
 
Greetings all. Hedgewitch (Joy Ann Jones) here, standing in for the redoubtable Shay Simmons, who is taking the week off. This week I have the privilege of featuring one of the great Spanish language poets, many say one of the greatest poets in any language, Pablo Neruda. 

Neruda, born Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto in Chile in 1904, was a renowned diplomat and prolific poet who produced a huge body of work, from the ardently political to the surreal, from lyric and beautiful love poems to odes to ordinary things like onions and soap, as well as a personal favorite, A Dog Has Died, in my opinion one of  the most memorable poems ever written about grief. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971, and died in September 1973, shortly after the Pinochet coup d'etat that overthrew Chile's socialist president Salvador Allende. There is some evidence his death may have been politically contrived. He remains "one of the most influential and widely read 20th century poets of the Americas." (Poetry Foundation)
 
 



 
I have sourced the words for this list from my own two collections of Neruda's work, The Essential Neruda;Selected Poems, various translators, edited by Mark Eisnar, and Residence on Earth, translator Donald D. Walsh. Both are bilingual, with poems in Spanish and English. I've tried to choose words which are clear and free of any confusion or nuance derived from translated concepts.

As Shay says,: "What we do here is simple: use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in an original poem. Then just link up and visit others. This prompt stays "live" through Friday.  
 
 
 So, without further ado, here is your list:

arrow
awning
beating
cortege
dog
earth
falling
geraniums
honey
iron
kiss
listen
malediction
naked
origin
petals
poppies
sour
water
white


14 comments:

  1. Thanks so much for guest hosting this week, dear BFF! What a great choice in Neruda. I came up with something I am pretty happy with; I hope you'll like it. Thanks again for hosting!

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    1. Can't wait to read what you have created, Shay. I am still working on mine, but will be there soon, and thanks for this opportunity to showcase a favorite poet.

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  2. Hi Joy and thank you for giving Shay a break. I love the deeper insight into his life and the list is wonderful! I am knee deep in a project at work that is killing me to finish but I hope to be back with something before Friday. I love Pablo Neruda!

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    1. Welcome, Carrie. Good luck at work, and we hope to see you back when you are ready.

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  3. Not to list every greatest-of-all-time Neruda poem, in the spirit of our prompt sites there is his ode to a pair of socks. It reminds me there is always a way, always a splinter of light if only I have the patience, openness, and maybe a bit of luck to find it. If Neruda can find all this in a pair of socks, we have little excuse. https://poets.org/poem/ode-my-socks

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    1. I love that one, too, qbit. He is a master at finding the poetry in the commonplace.

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    2. I would like to amend my note as follows: "Neruda reminds us there is always a way, always a splinter of light if only we have the patience, openness, imagination, and willingness to take risks. (And sometimes yes, a bit of luck.)"

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    3. I used my poetic license (issue date 1/22/75) to override "geranium" and "poppy" in the list and replaced them with "hydrangea."

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    4. Your license is always valid here, qbit. Especially for producing a poem like that! Just amazing.

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  4. What little I've read by the man is memorable. Will be writing something before deadline.

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    1. Excellent, Li. Can't wait to see what you create.

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  5. Such a wonderful poet to choose! How could I resist this prompt? :-)

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    1. So good to see you here, Sunra! On my way to read yours now.

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  6. Thanks again for standing in for me, Joy. Your choice and presentation were excellent!

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