This post is a reflection of the poetry collection by Neruda, titled “Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair”.  Normally, I’m not a big reader of poetry, which is to say that I don’t have the aptitude to appreciate poetry as much as another person who really enjoys literature and poems, but I do tend to appreciate what I do come across.

To dive into my thoughts for this book, I can sort of summarize my thoughts in one sentence:

He is more passionate about him being passionate than he is passionate about her.

Reading his poems reminded me of a quote that said something along the lines of: if a man wrote a poem for her he loves her, and if he wrote multiple poems for her- he loves poems. I think this doesn’t necessarily take away form the quality or intimacy / vulnerability of the poems that make it beautiful, but I would hesitate to accept its title as the gospel for hopeless romantics, because that means hopeless romantics are more in love with the idea of being in love as opposed to the motions of loving another human being. Although that can very much be the case. I don’t think of myself as a hopeless romantic so I cannot really speak on that.

I think my initial thoughts connect to the lecture very well too, since the feeling I got from this book is that he loves so that he can write. Which fulfills his purpose as a writer, as described in the 20th poem, where he opens with “Tonight I can write the saddest lines.” (pg.70), in acknowledgement of his desire to turn this love into craft, and as that love ends, he understands that these poems contain “the last verses that I write for her” (pg.78), where the potential or material for writing more poems dies as this love comes to a close.

Personally, I think the “problematic” aspects of his poetry doesn’t require multiple reads to notice, especially coming from a female’s perspective. The more notable thing in my opinion, is that this is something I notice often in male writers and the undertone of their work. Notable examples can range from people that are popular now, such as Haruki Murakami, or even the last author Azuela who wrote The Underdogs which had sorrowful depictions of female characters, from Camilia to War Paint.

To recycle Neruda’s own words: Love (from these mens perspective) is so short, forgetting (their sexism tinged work) is so long. Because they always end up being writers worth looking at.

To close, my question to you all is, Which poem out of the 20 was your favourite, or contained the most memorable quote for you, and why is it particularly significant to you?