Product Description

Nobel Laureate Pablo Neruda explored many schools of thought, poetic styles, and voices, but his passion lay in finding and improvising upon basic rhythms of perception to reveal unspoken and unspeakable truths. Copper Canyon Press has published seven volumes of Neruda's poetry. Six volumes were translated by William O'Daly and one volume of poems was translated by James Nolan.

These brief poems, composed entirely of unanswerable questions, reveal the Nobel Laureate's lifelong dedication to an inner structure of feeling and paradox that underlies experience.

"Exploiting the lag between perception and understanding, Neruda's poems evoke pictures that make sense on a visual level before the reader can grasp them on a literal one. The effect is mildly dazzlingO'Daly's translations achieve a tone that is both meditative and spontaneous."-Publishers Weekly

"The English versions of the poems are excellent and can easily be compared to the Spanish original."-Choice

Other titles by Pablo Neruda available from Consortium:
Ceremonial Songs (Latin American Literary Review Press), 0-935480-80-3 PB
Neruda at Isla Negra (White Pine Press), 1-877727-83-0 PB
Neruda's Garden (Latin American Literary Review Press), 0-935480-68-4 PB
The Sea and the Bells (Copper Canyon Press), 1-55659-019-9 PB
The Separate Rose (Copper Canyon Press), 0-914742-88-4 PB
Still Another Day (Copper Canyon Press), 0-914742-77-9 PB
Stones of the Sky (Copper Canyon Press), 1-55659-007-5 PB 1-55659-006-7 HC
Windows That Open Inward (White Pine Press), 1-877727-89-X PB
Winter Garden, (Copper Canyon Press), 0-914742-93-0 PB 0-914742-99-X HC
Yellow Heart, (Copper Canyon Press), 1-55659-029-6 PB

Product Details

• Published on: 1991-09
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The 74 poems in this collection consist entirely of questions. These questions appeal to the reader to supply images not answers. Exploiting the lag between perception and understanding, the Nobel laureate's poems evoke pictures that make sense on a visual level before the reader can grasp them on a literal one. The effect is mildly dazzling: "Where did the full moon leave / its sack of flour tonight?" Composed during the final months of a fatal illness, these poems are also pervaded by an autumnal atmosphere: "Why do leaves commit suicide / when they feel yellow?" Yet Neruda's characteristic depiction of life and death as cyclical allows him to be inquisitive and even playful toward his own mortality instead of despairing: "Will your worms become part / of dogs or of butterflies?" O'Daly's translations achieve a tone that is both meditative and spontaneous. His introduction, however, fares less well, in yielding to the misconception of Neruda ( Still Another Day ) as a kind of South American shaman rather than representing him as the shrewd and ironic poet he demonstrated himself to be even in minor works such as this.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Once called "a one-man Renaissance," Nobel laureate and Chilean poet and statesman Neruda (1904-1973) wrote these 74 poems and 316 playful questions about death, nature, and rebirth in the last year of his life. Cryptic and intriguing, these brief answerless riddles, like Roethke's visionary poems, ask the sophisticated question of the innocent child--"Is the sun the same as yesterday's/ or is the fire different than that fire?"--and probe what it means to be human: "Whom can I ask what I came/to make happen in this world?" This volume is the last in a series of seven bilingual translations from this publishers of Neruda's late and posthumously published work. American poetry and readers benefit by having excellent English-language translations of all Neruda's complicated, prolific work.
- Frank Al len, SUNY at Cobleskill
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author
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.

Customer Reviews

The World Through Questions
The BOOK OF QUESTIONS was written in 1973, a few months before Neruda's death to cancer. Troubled by the knowledge of his impending death, as well as by a U.S. backed coup threatening the Allende government in Chile (Leftist regime 1970-73), Neruda wrote several small books of brief poems, comprised simply of unanswerable questions, in the koan tradition (question/statement in the form of a paradox that disciples of Zen ponder). They are enigmatic, at times surreal, leaving you lost in labyrinths of deep thought, or in abstract bewilderment.

My favorite questions include:

Why do leaves commit suicide
When they feel yellow?

and

When the convict ponders the light
is it the same light that shines on you?

--ross saciuk