Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon: Selected Poems of Pablo Neruda

by Pablo Neruda, Stephen Mitchell

Overview

“The Nobel laureate’s work is refreshingly accessible and unpretentious. He celebrates the joy and wonder of the ordinary and conveys it with confident, playful language. . . . [Mitchell’s] love for this material is clear.” — Seattle Times

The poetry of Pablo Neruda is beloved worldwide for its passion, humor, and exceptional accessibility. The nearly fifty poems selected for this collection and translated by Stephen Mitchell—widely praised for his original and definitive translations of spiritual writings and poetry—focus on Neruda's mature period, when the poet was in his fifties. A bilingual volume, with Neruda's original Spanish text facing Mitchell's English translation, brings Neruda's sensuous work to vibrant life for a whole new generation of readers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061733574
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/30/2009
Series:	P.S. Series
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), one of the most beloved poets of the twentieth century, was born in Parral, Chile. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971.

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973), uno de los poetas más renombrados del siglo veinte, nació en Parral, Chile. En 1950 compartió el Premio Internacional de la Paz con Paul Robeson y Pablo Picasso, y en 1971 fue galardonado con el Premio Nobel de Literatura.

Stephen Mitchell's many books include the bestselling Tao Te Ching, Gilgamesh, and The Second Book of the Tao, as well as The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, The Gospel According to Jesus, Bhagavad Gita, The Book of Job, and Meetings with the Archangel.

Date of Birth:

July 12, 1904

Date of Death:

September 23, 1973

Place of Birth:

Parral, Chile

Place of Death:

Santiago, Chile

Education:

University of Chile, Santiago

Read an Excerpt

Some Beasts

It was the twilight of the iguana.

From the rainbow-arched battlements
his tongue like a dart
plunged into the greenness,
the monastic ant-swarm walked
through the jungle with melodious feet,
the guanaco, thin as oxygen
in the wide gray heights,
moved wearing boots of gold,
while the llama opened his guileless
eyes in the transparency
of a world filled with dew.
The monkeys braided a thread
endlessly erotic
along the shores of the dawn,
demolishing walls of pollen
and scaring off the violet flight
of the butterflies of Muzo.
It was the night of the alligators,
the night pure and pullulating
with snouts emerging from the slime,
and out of the sleepy marshes
an opaque noise of armor
returned to the earth it came from.

The jaguar touched the leaves
with his phosphorescent absence,
the puma runs on the branches
like a devouring fire
while inside him burn
the jungle's alcoholic eyes.

The badgers scratch the feet
of the river, sniff out the nest
whose throbbing delight
they'll attack with red teeth.

And in the depths of the all-powerful water,
like the circle of the earth,
lies the giant anaconda,
covered with ritual mud,
devouring and religious.

Editorial Reviews

Stephen Mitchell’s translation gives us a glimpse inside Chilean poet Pablo Neruda’s life—a life that sees the profound in the ordinary. . . . In these ordinary moments, we find ourselves pondering the profound.” — Christian Science Monitor

“The Nobel laureate’s work is refreshingly accessible and unpretentious. He celebrates the joy and wonder of the ordinary and conveys it with confident, playful language. . . . [Mitchell’s] love for this material is clear.” — Seattle Times

From the Publisher

Stephen Mitchell’s translation gives us a glimpse inside Chilean poet Pablo Neruda’s life—a life that sees the profound in the ordinary. . . . In these ordinary moments, we find ourselves pondering the profound.

Christian Science Monitor

The Nobel laureate’s work is refreshingly accessible and unpretentious. He celebrates the joy and wonder of the ordinary and conveys it with confident, playful language. . . . [Mitchell’s] love for this material is clear.

Seattle Times