Neruda, Pablo. “La Poesía” (Poetry) (Part of the manuscript, 10 p.).

Neruda, Pablo. “La Poesía” (Poetry) (Part of the manuscript, 10 p.).

10 sheets of A4. Written by Pablo Neruda. Belonging to the book Memorial de Isla Negra, (Isla Negra, a notebook) from the volume Donde nace la lluvia, page 51, published in 1964. This poem is self-referential, it is a reflection on what the author discovers when he starts writing poetry. It describes his emotion on understanding literature and being able to express his feelings through this medium. The external composition has three stanzas with a different number of verses: thirteen, twenty-four and nine respectively. The internal composition matches the external. In the first part, the writer describes the sensation of when poetry wants to come to him and conquer him. In the second section, he explains the magic, which is impossible to decipher or express in words, although he tries. Finally, he felt part of the immensity of the world, a “pure part of the abyss.” Each stanza is analysed in depth throughout the essay. In the first is the introduction to the rest of the poem. It shows that everything happened in a remote period “y fue a esa edad...” (“and it was at that age....” line 1), without any specific year lacking importance. On the contrary, this contrast with the prayer that continues “llego la poesía a buscarme” (“poetry came to find me” line 1), these phrases are what captures the reader and gets them to continue reading. The contrast present in the first two lines shows the change that Pablo Neruda made with respect to writing literature, which is illustrated in the poem. In the first part, the writer refers to the first time he got close to poetry, to first inspiration. It is difficult to describe the sensation “no sé, no sé de dónde salió, de invierno o río, no sé cómo ni cuándo” (“ I don’t know, I don’t know where it came from, from winter or river, I do not know how or when” lines 2-4). Throughout the first stanza the poet uses different resources to describe feeling. As can be seen in the quote from the previous paragraph, the writer uses repetition as a tool to emphasise that he does not know how either poetry or inspiration came to him. In order to do this, he repeats negations “No, no eran voces, no eran palabras, ni silencio” (“No, they were not voices, they were not words, nor silence” lines 5-6). Also, the author decides to give more importance to poetry when he personifies it “llegó la poesía a buscarme” (“poetry came to find me” lines 1-2). Throughout the rest of the stanza, the poet describes the places which poetry belongs to, to all places: in nature and in atmosphere. To show the feeling of being surrounded by inspiration, where he had no escape as poetry was present, the author uses enumeration. The author puts all the places in a list to generate a tiring rhythm which shows the breadth and variety of the places: “desde una calle me llamaba, desde las ramas de la noche, de pronto entre los otros, entre fuegos violentos” (“from a street she called me, from the branches of the night, suddenly among others, between violent fires” lines 7-10). Poetry appeared to be omnipresent, to be everywhere.