Poetic Passion

pablo neruda

I've been reading a little Spanish poetry lately, inspired by an assignment I had for comp lit to present a close reading of a foreign language poem in class. Although I probably don't have the time I've been spending surfing poetry sites online, it's always wonderful when an assigment ignites a keen interest in something, and I never feel like time is wasted when I'm learning about something exciting or following a passion.

One poet I became particularly smitten with is Pablo Neruda. I had read some of his stuff before but had never really delved very deeply into his impressive repertoir. Neruda (a pen name) was a Chilean poet, a politically active Communist, and famous for his accessible poetry written for the common man (1904 - 1973). I have posted one of my favorite poems below--I also posted a translation, though I must say, something is definitely lost in translation.

Oda a los calcetines

de Pablo Neruda

Me trajo Mara Mori

un par de calcetines,

que tejió con sus manos de pastora,

dos calcetines suaves como liebres.

En ellos metí los pies

como en dos estuches

tejidos con hebras del

crepúsculo y pellejos de ovejas.

Violentos calcetines,

mis pies fueron dos pescados de lana,

dos largos tiburonesde azul ultramarinoa

travesados por una trenza de oro,

dos gigantescos mirlos,

dos cañones;

mis pies fueron honrados de este modo

por estos celestiales calcetines.

Eran tan hermosos que por primera vez

mis pies me parecieron inaceptables,

como dos decrépitos bomberos,
bomberos indignos de aquel fuego bordado,

de aquellos luminosos calcetines.

Sin embargo, resistí la tentación

aguda de guardarlos como los colegiales

preservan las luciénagas,

como los eruditos coleccionan

documentos sagrados,

resistí el impulso furioso de ponerlas

en una jaula de oro y darles cada

día alpiste y pulpa de melón rosado.

Como descubridores que en la selva

entregan el rarísimo venado verde

al asador y se lo comen con remordimiento,

estiré los pies y me enfundé

los bellos calcetines, y luego los zapatos.

Y es esta la moral de mi Oda:

Dos veces es belleza la belleza,

y lo que es bueno es doblemente bueno,

cuando se trata de dos calcetines

de lana en el invierno.

Ode to My Socks

Maru Mori brought me
a pair of socks
knitted with her own shepherd's hands,
two socks soft as rabbits.
I slipped my feet into them
as if into jewel cases
woven with threads of
dusk and sheep's wool

Audacious socks,
my feet became two woolen fish,
two long sharks
of lapis blue
shot with a golden thread,
two mammoth blackbirds,
two cannons;
thus honored were my feet
by these celestial socks.

They were so beautiful that for the first time
my feet seemed unacceptable to me,
two tired old fire fighters,
not worthy of the woven fire
of those luminous socks.

Nonetheless, I resisted the strong temptation
to save them the way schoolboys
bottle fireflies,
the way scholars hoard
sacred documents.
I resisted the wild impulse to place them

in a cage of gold and daily feed them
birdseed and rosy melon flesh.

Like explorers who in the forest
surrender a rare and tender deer
to the spit and eat it with remorse,
I stuck out my feet and pulled on
the handsome socks, and then my shoes.
So this is the moral of my ode:
twice beautiful is beauty
and what is good is doubly good
when it is a case of two
woolen socks in wintertime.

I absolutely love this poem; it seems to be so profound in its simplicity. Sometimes I feel like poetry is so contrived and even bombastic that it becomes a form of expression inaccessible to the common man. But poetry to me is such a natural and organic outlet of emotion and ideas that it can be understood by any human being. Neruda approaches the poem with a very personal voice and simple language, and is almost comical in his subject choice. But his theme emerges with such unaffected wisdom that we see the inherent and unpretentious truth in it. Rather than a traditional ode to some grandiose person or object, Neruda's is to a pair of wool socks; but in the wintertime, when you have cold feet, what could be more important?