Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda

About Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

The most popular work by Chile’s Nobel Prize-winning poet, and the subject of Pablo Larraín’s acclaimed feature film Neruda starring Gael García Bernal

A Penguin Classic

When it appeared in 1924, this work launched into the international spotlight a young and unknown poet whose writings would ignite a generation. W. S. Merwin’s incomparable translation faces the original Spanish text. Now in a black-spine Classics edition with an introduction by Cristina Garcia, this book stands as an essential collection that continues to inspire lovers and poets around the world.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

About Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Brilliant English translation of beloved poems by Pablo Neruda, who is the subject of the film Neruda starring Gael García Bernal and directed by Pablo Larraín

A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, with French flaps

First published in 1924, Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada remains among Pablo Neruda’s most popular work. Daringly metaphorical and sensuous, this collection juxtaposes youthful passion with the desolation of grief. Drawn from the poet’s most intimate and personal associations, the poems combine eroticism and the natural world with the influence of expressionism and the genius of a master poet. This edition features the newly corrected original Spanish text, with masterly English translations by award-winning poet W. S. Merwin on facing pages.

• Includes twelve sketches by Pablo Picasso
• New introduction by Cristina García

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Praise

By the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

Twenty Love Poems and a Song of DespairIntroduction
I. Body of a Woman
II. The Light Wraps You
III. Ah Vastness of Pines
IV. The Morning Is Full
V. So that You Will Hear Me
VI. I Remember You As You Were
VII. Leaning into the Afternoons
VIII. White Bee
IX. Drunk with Pines
X. We Have Lost Even
XI. Almost out of the Sky
XII. Your Breast Is Enough
XIII. I Have Gone Marking
XIV. Every Day You Play
XV. I Like for You to Be Still
XVI. In My Sky at Twilight
XVII. Thinking, Tangling Shadows
XVIII. Here I Love You
XIX. Girl Lithe and Tawny
XX. Tonight I Can Write
The Song of Despair
Selected Bibliography
Suggestions for Further Reading

About Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda, seudónimo de Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes, nació en Parral, Provincia de Linares, Chile, en 1904. Pasó la mayor parte de su infancia y adolescencia en Temuco, donde escribió sus primeros poemas. A partir de 1927 ocupó varios cargos… More about Pablo Neruda

About Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda, seudónimo de Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes, nació en Parral, Provincia de Linares, Chile, en 1904. Pasó la mayor parte de su infancia y adolescencia en Temuco, donde escribió sus primeros poemas. A partir de 1927 ocupó varios cargos… More about Pablo Neruda