The first time I really connected to Pablo Neruda's poetry was the summer before my junior year of college. Reeling
after a bad breakup, I was going through the Spanish section of the library
when I came across a black book with gold lettering on the front - Residencia en la Tierra. At this point I
was familiar with Neruda's poetry but just barely. The poems I knew were the
ones that, if there was a billboard chart for poetry, would be considered Top
40 material, the types of poems that are anthologized in the intermediate level
Spanish lit readers. Don't get me wrong, these are great poems, iconic poems
like “Poema XX.” But they only show the side of Neruda that most people are
familiar with - his romantic poems. And while, say, “Poema XX,” with its heart
on its sleeve, with its “another’s. She will be another's,” may seem like the
perfect break up elegy, I shortly found out that the poems in Residencia express a whole other level
of anguish. For example. The heartbroken man in “Poema XX” can sing the saddest
verses on this night. Whereas the man who is tired of being a man in “Walking
Around” in Residencia finds the
atomic film separating his skin from the horrible space around him melts away, leaving
him wide open to the onslaught of reality. Poema XX is a lyrical sublimation of
heartache. Walking Around is a howl at the moon. And sometimes a howl at the
moon is what you need.
When I first looked over Red Poppy’s
Neruda documentary footage something clicked when one of the interviewees said
that Neruda himself was going through a break up when he wrote the Residencias, (as well as feeling estranged,
depressed, lost in solitude). I didn't know this beforehand but it made perfect
sense. While the poems are not overtly about a long gone lover, the
undercurrent of loss is there, a loss of human contact, and what more is a
break up than losing your closest human contact you have? Neruda gives voice to
that loss. And that voice, that articulation, is exactly the answer I have
started to give to my friends working as engineers and lab techs when they ask
me, Why Poetry? or its sister question, that resilient New York Times Op-Ed impetus,
Why the Humanities? Poetry can be a great many things and defies definition. It
can be puzzle to unlock with another person. It can be an epic story. It can be
a historical testament. But to me, most of all, poetry is just a human voice
that refuses to fade away.
Red Poppy’s important work focuses on collecting
these outspoken voices. At present the nonprofit is engaged with projects
including a documentary on Pablo Neruda's poetic activism, and an anthology
entitled Poetry in Resistance that
challenges readers to consider art as a vehicle for demanding social justice.
Every day we can read about the civil war in Syria, about turmoil in the
Ukraine, about genocide in the Sudan, about Pussy Riot being shipped to the
gulag, about mortgage holders illegally foreclosed upon and every single person
oppressed by these forces needs a voice beyond the sterilized sentences of The
News. That is where poetry comes into play. Poetry can bridge contexts and cultural
divides because emotions are universal. Neruda's poem indicting the United
Fruit Company, for example, is just as much an indictment of subprime lenders, because
the cannibalistic effects of unregulated capitalism endure, and so does our
outrage. Similarly, the poets featured in Poetry
in Resistance voice dissent against oppressive and authoritarian forces
which still persist to this day. And one day we hope to listen to the Syrians
voice their own laments over the conflict. Because that should be the project
of poetry. Understanding human conflict, and fighting for social justice.
That's Why Poetry. And that's also Why Red Poppy.
by David Shames
by David Shames