Fairly early this morning, I sat down with my battered metal cup of coffee in my usual cafe, intending to think about my Introduction to Literature class and poetry. How to emphasize the best way to approach poetry for the first time, or from a new, renewed perspective, perhaps. How to start, how to enter, how to read and reflect and feel your way into poetry. Often, I emphasize "What's the story?" And, "Who's talking? to whom? where? from what place, physical and emotional?"
That's how I often encourage my students to enter the world of poetry. What's the story?
Some lines from Pablo Neruda, the great Chilean poet, rose up in my mind. A man reflecting on what he's seen, experienced, remembers. A riddle of sorts, though not as puzzling as so many lines out of context, perhaps.
I have seen from my windowthe fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.
Sometimes a piece of sunburned like a coin between my hands.
He visto desde mi ventana
la fiesta del poniente en los cerros lejanos.
A veces como una moneda
se encendia un pedazo de sol entre mis manos.
Two lines from the middle of Neruda's "Hemos Perdidio Aun" ("We Have Lost Even") in the translation of W.S. Merwin.
My high school Spanish is long gone, but if I call up my grad school Latin. pick up a dictionary, and keep a good translation at hand, then I can piece my way through some of Neruda's (and Lorca's) work. I like making the effort with the foreign language poems I like best in English. Sometime, I'll have to address my lack of Spanish much more seriously.
(There are too many languages I've let slip--Latin, German, Old English, that Spanish--and so many languages I should have pursued or pursued further--Classical Greek, French, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese. Oh, I can start or restart any time, any time.)
Here, I wanted to share an image that stays with me from the midst of a worthy poem. A poem about loss, piercing loss from the past. That view from afar, from the window, watching the sunset, "the fiesta of the sunset in the distant mountain tops." Distanced, but not quite detached. Detached would make everything easier. (Or as singer Kathleen Edwards reminds us, "Memory is a terrible thing if you use it right.")
Neruda is a great poet of internal observation, of feeling from afar and in the moment, of passion and the recollection of passion.
Now, the puzzle of that image, that imagery, would mean that we--my students and myself--would need to place that moment, that speaker, in the context of the whole poem. And that would lead us into the poem, first and foremost, and then beyond, to other poems, to the emotions and moments of our own lives.
However, I don't want to start with puzzles, for that only reinforces the distancing so many "new" or "inexperienced" readers feel with poetry. Now, I'll start with something more denotative, more declarative, at least in class (though I'm tempted for the emotional landscape here seems very accessible).
What's the story? Or, to borrow more Neruda from that same poem:
Where were you then?
Who else was there?
Saying what?
P.S. Idle thoughts follow their own path. I meant to write about the "coin" image, the physical appropriateness, the metaphorical richness, the probable meanings. I'll save that for a future entry, perhaps, for work is calling.
P.P.S. Here are the texts for the whole poem, the tenth in the sequence, first in Neruda's original Spanish and then in Merwin's English translation. Enjoy.
Hemos perdido aun este crepusculo.
Nadie nos vio esta tarde con las manos unidas
mientras la noche azul caia sobre el mundo.
He visto desde mi ventana
la fiesta del poniente en los cerros lejanos.
A veces come una moneda
se encendia un pedazo de sol entre mis manos.
Yo te recordaba con el alma apretada
de esa tristeza que tu me conoces.
Entonces, donde estabas?
Entre que genes?
Diciendo que palabras?
Por que se me vendra todo el amor de golpe
cuando me siento triste, y te siento lejana?
Cayo el libro que siempre se toma en el crepusculo,
y como un perro herido rodo a mis pies mi capa.
Siempre, siempre te alejas en las tardes
hacia donde el crepusculo corre borrando estatuas.
X. We Have Lost Even
We have lost even this twilight.
No one saw us this evening hand in hand
while the blue night dropped on the world.
I have seen from my window
the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.
Sometimes a piece of sun
burned like a coin between my hands.
I remembered you with my soul clenched
in that sadness of mine that you know.
Where were you then?
Who else was there?
Saying what?
Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly
when I am sad and feel you are far away?
The book fell that is always turned to at twilight
and my cape rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.
Always, always you recede through the evenings
towards where the twilight goes erasing statues.
