by John G Evans

Created on: October 13, 2010

Pablo Neruda, born in Parral, Chile in 1904, and lived a full life until his death in 1972. In 1920 he traveled to Santiago and began publishing his poetry. He began writing as a young man in his teens. In 1924 he began his true calling as a poet and was a great success with his Viente poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada. He traveled extensively from 1927-1943, traveling to Singapore, much of South America, Mexico, France, and Spain. He began a life of political exile. Pablo also became extensively known as a prominent poet of Latin America and received the Nobel Prize in 1971. He stated that a good poet must achieve balance, “between solitude and solidarity, between feeling and action, between intimacy of oneself, the intimacy of mankind, and the revelation of nature.” Here we can see Pablo Neruda was in fact very well known for his love poems.

One of his best pieces of love poetry was titled, “Body of a Woman.” This poem symbolizes his depth of articulation metaphorically and the grace upon which to delve into such subject matter with a steady yet pounding sensitivity, carefully sowing his selected verbiage as only a master of language can write.

His last two stanzas he carefully, meticulously, spiritually, selects his mastery over the written word so tenaciously, that the reader can sense the extreme yet subtleness, diverse translation of his love and perceptions to the love for women.

“But the hour of vengeance falls, and I love you.

Body of skin, of moss, of eager and firm milk.

Oh the goblets of the breast! Oh the eyes of absence!

Oh the roses of the pubis! Oh your voice, slow and sad!

Here Neruda lays claim to understanding his perception of the graceful spirit of a woman and his hunger or thirst for his endless desire to love her with all his strength, heart, mind, body and soul. He states, “and I love you!” And from here he describes his and her eagerness to share in a beauty far beyond the realms of this world, though still in the world, intimate and beautiful, rapturous, and spiritual.

His words roll forward and freely, describing his love, sensing his love, and feeling his love for the female creature of the great Creation, his ultimate desire to share and connect on a level of such keen observation, not only of the “Body of a Woman,” but how his words will gradually, peer into the sometimes savage, though mostly sensitive world view of persistent beauty and grace of his woman in which he

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