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Alone in BabelFebruary 14, 2011

Valentine’s Day: must be time for some Neruda

The Cien Sonetos de Amor (100 Love Sonnets) are perhaps more polished, but for sheer passion I’ll make the predictable choice and go back to the most famous of the Veinte Poemas, published when Neruda was just 19.

Neruda’s reputation has suffered a little in recent years -García Marquez called him ‘the greatest poet of the twentieth century -in any language’, an open invitation to any future critics wishing to assail that over-inflated reputation. Attention has been diverted away from Neruda and towards the ‘antipoemas’ of Nicanor Parra, or the surrealist beauty of César Vallejo. Towards the end of his life, Neruda himself noted that ‘Todos los que nerudearon/ comenzaron a vallejarse’, a line which is almost impossible to translate (the only attempt I’ve seen in English runs something like ‘Those who Nerudized began to Vallejoate’ and loses the pun on ‘alejarse’, to distance oneself).

The shameful naïvety of the Ode to Stalin has, rightly, been pointed out by Neruda’s detractors (readers who believe Neruda’s sporadically extreme left-wing views make him a bad poet should feel free to exalt in some Neruda bashing here), but it takes a special variety of stubbornness to ignore the charms of Veinte Poemas, a collection which remains wildly popular in almost every Spanish-speaking country. Yes, the poems are sometimes saccharine, this is the voice of a young man in love rather than a world-weary poet, Neruda risks lapsing into cliché… All that, and yet the poems remain among the most beautiful ever written.

Here’s the most well-known, the twentieth, in the original Spanish. W.S. Merwin’s English translation can be found here, and a Youtube video of Neruda reading the poem (preceded by Poema XV) is here.

Poema XX

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.

Escribir, por ejemplo: ‘La noche está estrellada,
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos.’

El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Yo la quise, y a veces ella también me quiso.

En las noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos.
La besé tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito.

Ella me quiso, a veces yo también la quería.
Cómo no haber amado sus grandes ojos fijos.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Pensar que no la tengo. Sentir que la he perdido.

Oír la noche inmensa, más inmensa sin ella.
Y el verso cae al alma como al pasto el rocío.

Qué importa que mi amor no pudiera guardarla.
La noche está estrellada y ella no está conmigo.

Eso es todo. A lo lejos alguien canta. A lo lejos.
Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Como para acercarla mi mirada la busca.
Mi corazón la busca, y ella no está conmigo.

La misma noche que hace blanquear los mismos árboles.
Nosotros, los de entonces, ya no somos los mismos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cuánto la quise.
Mi voz buscaba el viento para tocar su oído.

De otro. Será de otro. Como antes de mis besos.
Su voz, su cuerpo claro. Sus ojos infinitos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.
Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.

Porque en noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos,
Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Aunque éste sea el último dolor que ella me causa,
y éstos sean los últimos versos que yo le escribo.

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jacob silkstonenobel laureatespoetry

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One last love letter...

April 24, 2021

It has taken us some time and patience to come to this decision. TMS would not have seen the success that it did without our readers and the tireless team that ran the magazine for the better part of eight years.

But… all good things must come to an end, especially when we look at the ever-expanding art and literary landscape in Pakistan, the country of the magazine’s birth.

We are amazed and proud of what the next generation of creators are working with, the themes they are featuring, and their inclusivity in the diversity of voices they are publishing. When TMS began, this was the world we envisioned…

Though the magazine has closed and our submissions shuttered, this website will remain open for the foreseeable future as an archive of the great work we published and the astounding collection of diverse voices we were privileged to feature.

If, however, someone is interested in picking up the baton, please email Maryam Piracha, the editor, at [email protected].

Farewell, fam! It’s been quite a ride.

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