5 ms·

The messy, brilliant life of Pablo Neruda

59 points by flannery 8y ago

WhompingWindows 8y ago
“Poetry is like bread, It should be shared by all, by scholars and by peasants, by all our vast, incredible, extraordinary family of humanity.” And yet, do the vast majority of humans actually read poetry? Perhaps they access it tangentially in Bob Dylan or The Beatles, but more likely than not, they're consuming Netflix or cable TV or much less high art than poetry. What are the top most sold books on Kindle, for instance? So many are romance novels, not Earthy, gritty, brilliant poetry like Neruda's.
- InclinedPlane 8y ago
  You don't have to shit all over romance novels, "the kids the days", or (through omission) music made in the last half-century to encourage people to appreciate poetry more. Incidentally, many forms of poetry are fairly popular these days. The Hamilton musical is one of the most successful pop culture phenomena of our time. Tons of artists like (recent Pulitzer Prize winner) Kendrick Lamar are shoving poetry into the ears of millions of people constantly. Edit: I'll put this here as an example, and since it's a cover it shows the widespread enthusiasm that's out there for the material: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqGGmfDZsWU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqGGmfDZsWU
  - waterpowder 8y ago
    You must be trolling. This is not poetry.
- ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
  I don't enjoy Poetry directly... but I think I still enjoy its benefits. As long as the discipline exists, writers who study and learn it, will let it subtlety influence their writing. Ursula K. Le Guin was supposedly a brilliant poet. I don't have to read books of poetry, to enjoy her Fantasy series. Authors like Dan Brown I'm sure would be more palatable if they devoted some time to studying poems.
- rukuu001 8y ago
  There's a big spoken-word scene in most major metro areas. Obviously related, among the dross, hiphop has some excellent writing. Let's celebrate a return of poetry as performance, instead of a purely written form.
- toomanybeersies 8y ago
  I think that school ruins poetry for most people. It took me about 5 years after finishing high school to begin to enjoy poetry again.
sifusam 8y ago
wapo typo: "Neruda’s funeral be came a spontaneous public demonstration of defiance against the new regime."
partycoder 8y ago
It is not clear if Neruda died from cancer as his death certificate indicates. Most likely got killed by the regime because of his political affiliations.
- funkaster 8y ago
  True. There was an investigation last year (in Spanish)[0] and they are expecting results later this year to possible confirm that it was killed by Pinochet's regime (which, tbh, it would not surprise me at all). Edit: found a link with a similar article in English: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-41702706 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-41702706 [0]: http://www.elmostrador.cl/noticias/pais/2017/10/20/peritos-entregan-primera-conclusion-sobre-la-muerte-de-pablo-neruda-no-murio-de-cancer/ http://www.elmostrador.cl/noticias/pais/2017/10/20/peritos-e...
- dieg0 8y ago
  Wrong, he died from Cancer. Only in the past few years this conspiracy theory surfaced. It is well known he was very ill way before the military coup. In fact, the left wanted him to be the candidate instead of Salvador Allende, but he didn't go for it, because he was involved in medical treatments. This is just the left trying to rewrite history, and please don’t cite journalists as sources. It is said that journalists have a bast amount of information but an inch of depth on it.
  - partycoder 8y ago
    Wrong, forensic doctor Aurelio Luna, Director of the external service of forensic science of University of Murcia found traces of a cultivated bacteria in the exhumed body of Pablo Neruda. This is enough to raise suspicions about his death. Remember that assassinations in hospitals during this period were not uncommon. It is also suspected that former Chilean president Eduardo Frei Montalva was killed by the regime during a hospital stay.
    - killjoywashere 8y ago
      I'm sorry, traces of bacteria in an exhumed body?! This less surprising than find bacteria in shit.
dieg0 8y ago
When talking about Neruda's life, don't leave out the fact he had a mentally challenged daughter. He had her institutionalized to never visit again in her entire life. He was a great poet, lived a lavish life, had many women and an eccentric lifestyle. But he was no role model, in fact, he was far from it.
- soperj 8y ago
  You can say the same about Jobs, but people still go on and on about him on this site.
  - jacobolus 8y ago
    Jobs was a shitty parent between the ages of about 23–30 (between a few years before that and the middle of that period he had gone from being a broke unemployed college drop-out traveling around India and then living in a commune to a workaholic world-famous celebrity and gajillionaire), after which he apologetically reconciled with his former girlfriend and their child. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Family
    - soperj 8y ago
      He also screwed over his friend Steve Wozniak for money before Apple was formed. He has a history of being a terrible person. No reason to pretend this was the only thing.
- balladeer 8y ago
  I maybe wrong in this assumption but I think very few know about a rape[0], at least that's what I think it was (from his memoir[1]), that he committed in Sri Lanka (Ceylon back then). It was a native Tamil woman. Doesn't at all read like a consensual act or an act of a transactional nature (which could be considered consensual). I loved his love poems and I think I would still like them (maybe) but for some reason I don't think it's going to be the same after knowing about this incident from his life. Maybe I need to work on separating the art from the artist, if at all that can be a thing. [0] https://globalvoices.org/2015/10/05/portrait-of-nobel-literary-prize-winner-pablo-neruda-sparks-debate-about-rape-culture-in-chile/ https://globalvoices.org/2015/10/05/portrait-of-nobel-litera... [1] http://tamilwoman.tumblr.com/post/79412843312/tw-rape-pablo-neruda-a-glorified-rapist-of http://tamilwoman.tumblr.com/post/79412843312/tw-rape-pablo-...

59 points by flannery 8y ago

“Poetry is like bread, It should be shared by all, by scholars and by peasants, by all our vast, incredible, extraordinary family of humanity.” And yet, do the vast majority of humans actually read poetry? Perhaps they access it tangentially in Bob Dylan or The Beatles, but more likely than not, they're consuming Netflix or cable TV or much less high art than poetry. What are the top most sold books on Kindle, for instance? So many are romance novels, not Earthy, gritty, brilliant poetry like Neruda's.

InclinedPlane 8y ago
You don't have to shit all over romance novels, "the kids the days", or (through omission) music made in the last half-century to encourage people to appreciate poetry more. Incidentally, many forms of poetry are fairly popular these days. The Hamilton musical is one of the most successful pop culture phenomena of our time. Tons of artists like (recent Pulitzer Prize winner) Kendrick Lamar are shoving poetry into the ears of millions of people constantly. Edit: I'll put this here as an example, and since it's a cover it shows the widespread enthusiasm that's out there for the material: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqGGmfDZsWU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqGGmfDZsWU
- waterpowder 8y ago
  You must be trolling. This is not poetry.
ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
I don't enjoy Poetry directly... but I think I still enjoy its benefits. As long as the discipline exists, writers who study and learn it, will let it subtlety influence their writing. Ursula K. Le Guin was supposedly a brilliant poet. I don't have to read books of poetry, to enjoy her Fantasy series. Authors like Dan Brown I'm sure would be more palatable if they devoted some time to studying poems.
rukuu001 8y ago
There's a big spoken-word scene in most major metro areas. Obviously related, among the dross, hiphop has some excellent writing. Let's celebrate a return of poetry as performance, instead of a purely written form.
toomanybeersies 8y ago
I think that school ruins poetry for most people. It took me about 5 years after finishing high school to begin to enjoy poetry again.

sifusam 8y ago

wapo typo: "Neruda’s funeral be came a spontaneous public demonstration of defiance against the new regime."

partycoder 8y ago

It is not clear if Neruda died from cancer as his death certificate indicates. Most likely got killed by the regime because of his political affiliations.

funkaster 8y ago
True. There was an investigation last year (in Spanish)[0] and they are expecting results later this year to possible confirm that it was killed by Pinochet's regime (which, tbh, it would not surprise me at all). Edit: found a link with a similar article in English: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-41702706 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-41702706 [0]: http://www.elmostrador.cl/noticias/pais/2017/10/20/peritos-entregan-primera-conclusion-sobre-la-muerte-de-pablo-neruda-no-murio-de-cancer/ http://www.elmostrador.cl/noticias/pais/2017/10/20/peritos-e...
dieg0 8y ago
Wrong, he died from Cancer. Only in the past few years this conspiracy theory surfaced. It is well known he was very ill way before the military coup. In fact, the left wanted him to be the candidate instead of Salvador Allende, but he didn't go for it, because he was involved in medical treatments. This is just the left trying to rewrite history, and please don’t cite journalists as sources. It is said that journalists have a bast amount of information but an inch of depth on it.
- partycoder 8y ago
  Wrong, forensic doctor Aurelio Luna, Director of the external service of forensic science of University of Murcia found traces of a cultivated bacteria in the exhumed body of Pablo Neruda. This is enough to raise suspicions about his death. Remember that assassinations in hospitals during this period were not uncommon. It is also suspected that former Chilean president Eduardo Frei Montalva was killed by the regime during a hospital stay.
  - killjoywashere 8y ago
    I'm sorry, traces of bacteria in an exhumed body?! This less surprising than find bacteria in shit.

dieg0 8y ago

When talking about Neruda's life, don't leave out the fact he had a mentally challenged daughter. He had her institutionalized to never visit again in her entire life. He was a great poet, lived a lavish life, had many women and an eccentric lifestyle. But he was no role model, in fact, he was far from it.

soperj 8y ago
You can say the same about Jobs, but people still go on and on about him on this site.
- jacobolus 8y ago
  Jobs was a shitty parent between the ages of about 23–30 (between a few years before that and the middle of that period he had gone from being a broke unemployed college drop-out traveling around India and then living in a commune to a workaholic world-famous celebrity and gajillionaire), after which he apologetically reconciled with his former girlfriend and their child. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Family
  - soperj 8y ago
    He also screwed over his friend Steve Wozniak for money before Apple was formed. He has a history of being a terrible person. No reason to pretend this was the only thing.
balladeer 8y ago
I maybe wrong in this assumption but I think very few know about a rape[0], at least that's what I think it was (from his memoir[1]), that he committed in Sri Lanka (Ceylon back then). It was a native Tamil woman. Doesn't at all read like a consensual act or an act of a transactional nature (which could be considered consensual). I loved his love poems and I think I would still like them (maybe) but for some reason I don't think it's going to be the same after knowing about this incident from his life. Maybe I need to work on separating the art from the artist, if at all that can be a thing. [0] https://globalvoices.org/2015/10/05/portrait-of-nobel-literary-prize-winner-pablo-neruda-sparks-debate-about-rape-culture-in-chile/ https://globalvoices.org/2015/10/05/portrait-of-nobel-litera... [1] http://tamilwoman.tumblr.com/post/79412843312/tw-rape-pablo-neruda-a-glorified-rapist-of http://tamilwoman.tumblr.com/post/79412843312/tw-rape-pablo-...