The Beauty of Latin America

Map of Latin America

Machu Picchu, Peru

When Neruda visited Machu Picchu, it changed his life as a poet forever. The visit to the heart of one of the most beautiful Latin American archaeological sites and cultural patrimony of humanity made him realize just the true beauty of his country and continent's heritage and ancestors. He began to appreciate Latin American beauty collectively even more than he did earlier in his life, and dedicated one of his most famous poetry collections to Latin American pride, called "The Heights of Machu Picchu." 

The VI's poem of this collection is self-explanatory in what the Machu Picchu visit did to Neruda:

And then up the ladder of the earth I climbed
through the horrible thicket of the lost jungles
to you, Machu Picchu.

Tall city of stones stacked up in steps,
at last a dwelling where what is earthly
was not hidden under slumbering clothes.
In you, like two parallel lines,
the cradle of lightning and humanity
rocking together in a thorny wind.

Mother of stone, spume of the condors.

Highest reef of the human dawn.

Shovel buried in the first sand.

This is just an excerpt from the poem, but these lines highlight his experience at the site and what he believes that Machu Picchu and the old sites contribute to humanity.

                          Chichen Itza, Mexico

Cascadas de Agua Azul, Mexico

                                                                           San Cristobal de Las Casas, Mexico

Latin American Flags

As a young Latin American woman, Neruda makes me appreciate my culture so much more every time I read a poem from "The Heights of Machu Picchu". I have travelled within Mexico around most of our archeological sites like Palenque, Tula, and Teotihuacan, and I can only wholeheartedly agree with Neruda's vision and share his love for Latin American beauty, culture, and history.

Social Causes

Neruda is known for being a passionate

communist. But why?

     Neruda, being active in the bloody Spanish civil war, 

moved into working in the direction of "collective 

obligation" instead of individual work. The catalyst that made

 him turn to collectivism and communism was the murder of 

his friend and great Spanish poet -Federico Garcia Lorca. 

Soon after his execution, Neruda published the collection

"Spain in the Heart" where he expressed his newly acquired

political views and where he 

highlighted the injustices of the war and of the Spanish 

government, and he showed his sympathy towards the 

Republican side. Neruda based his ideology on the belief that

 people had to work together in friendly environments in 

order to go towards success both as a country and as 

individuals, and he vastly learned this from living in Mexico

 as a Consul General, and in Italy during his exile from Chile.

El Amor

Great part of Neruda's fame and influence has been achieved because of his love poetry. 

Neruda is often called the "poet of love" and his poems and famous phrases definitely do justice to this nickname that has been given to him. Some of Neruda's most intense love poems include both sensual and physical attractions to women (or to a woman) as well as the emotional and mental connection that truly makes two people bond. 

A very famous love poem is "Body of a Woman". This poem represents the physical attraction that Neruda felt towards a "woman" he was apparently in love with. However, many suppositions have arisen as to which woman was his muse. Some options include some of his wives or even his lovers, for he was indeed a man of the ladies, but Neruda confessed in an interview that indeed he loves one woman--without mentioning her name-- and he also stated that he simply loves the body of a woman. That magical, curvilineal statue that makes women goddess like. Despite the Catholic barriers in Chile, Neruda dared to write openly about the private parts of a woman's body and about loving sexually maybe even outside of marriage.

However, even though Neruda is a complete advocate of love and passion, his poetry also reflects that just like love can be a heaven for lovers, it can also become hell when one stops feeling the same way. Through many of his despair poems, he shows the loss that he went through in his life: in losing wives, lovers, and ultimately the biggest love of his life--his daughter. 

One of his most famous despair poems "Tonight I can write the Saddest Lines" suggests how he felt when he lost a woman that he evidently loved very much. "Sometimes she loved me too." Neruda states. The following image is from that poem, and it contains one of his most remarkable and famous lines:

With the poetry of love, loss, despair, sensuality, and beyond, Neruda reflects the deepest and even the darkest and most secret human values and shows us what is like to embrace our own human nature.

Images That Show Neruda's Recurring Themes

Pablo Neruda's recurring themes speak to the place where he grew up in and to his life in general. The common imagery among many of his poems include the ocean and its wonders: beautiful mermaids with pearls, fishing nets and fishermen, ocean waves and water bubbles, as in the poem “March days return with their covert light”. In this poem, Neruda describes the "huge fish [that] swim through the sky, vague earthly vapours progress in secret..." and the "mermaids and spume" that "climb an invisible stairway". His metaphors and figurative language when describing the ocean speak to how he loved the ocean and his early life in general. His dear love for beaches is also evident in the movie Il Postino, where Neruda's house in the Italian island is depicted as being a few years away from the ocean itself. This way, Neruda can simply come out of his hut and write while staring at the coming-and-going waves.










Other common images in his poetry includes Chilean landscapes and ideas of loving Chile. The beauty of this country is depicted in many of his poems. However, he doesn't just love the beauty of his own country, but he praises Latin American beauty in general: just like the title of his poetry collection states, "The Heights of Machu Pichu". In his visit to Peru, he grew as a poet and he "fully" embraced a pride of being part of the great Latin American ancient civilizations.

Finally but certainly not least, a very common image throughout his works is the body of a woman. Neruda was as much a lover of women as any man, and despite being oppressed in his country by society and religion, he dares to openly talk about the sensuality of women.

"Poetry" Video (Click on the Link!)

                                                            
Click on the link below ("Poetry") and be sent to youtube for a video of the poem "Poetry"

                               "Poetry" by Pablo Neruda Video

And it was at that age ... Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names,
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire,
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind. 

Why Neruda?

         Studying Pablo Neruda has truly affected my life in unimaginable ways. I began studying Pablo Neruda during middle school, because he is a required poet in all of the literature classes in Mexico. He was one of the first poets that really got me into literature, and poetry especially, because before him I felt that poetry was too incomprehensible and even pointless. I was too young to really appreciate the beauty and depth of good poetry, and Neruda was one of the first writers that allowed me to build a personal connection to poems. 

            Throughout my high school, he was always my favorite poet to study in the Spanish language, and his poems were in a way the muses of my own poetry. During my junior and senior years of high school I presented two collections of my poems, where the overarching theme was love, loss, and the chance of loving once again. Neruda’s 20 Poems of Love and One Song of Despair was one of my greatest sources of inspiration because I connected with the way he wrote and the themes he addressed.

            I chose Neruda for this poetry project because although I have always loved the way he writes, I had never taken the time to research his biography, muses, and important life details that have shaped his work. I also have not read other of his important works, so I wanted to get even more acquainted with him as an author in hopes of developing an even deeper connection between his literature and my poems. Something that I discovered about Neruda that really fascinated me the most was the way he talks about his ars poetica. The poem that I used in my presentation, “Poetry”, is an ode to poetry itself and Neruda describes line by line how he got interested and passionate about writing poems. This is probably the most interesting aspect of his life that I learned through the poetry project because although it is evident that he is passionate about writing, I never thought that he would have a poem dedicated to what got him into writing. As an aspiring poet and avid reader, I know how it was for me when I started writing. Therefore, it was really special to me reading about how one of the greatest poets in my opinion, talks about the same issues that I have lived through and how poetry consumed him entirely after he wrote the “first line”.

            Through the poetry project I have reinforced my knowledge about Neruda’s biography, including details about him being a consul in different countries, an activist of communism, a wholehearted lover of women, a lover of his country Chile, and a lover of my country Mexico. By far, it is one of the most enjoyable projects that I have had in a literature class. This project has allowed me to learn more about Neruda’s life, his work, and why he is one of the most influential Latin American writers and undoubtedly one of my biggest role models for writing.