poet, lover, and fighter for equality 1904-1973 Chile Pablo Neruda poet, lover, and fighter for equality 1904-1973 Chile

Chile

Childhood cold forest, of the far south rain, Native Americans copihue flower father a stern railroad man mother died; kind stepmother wrote first poem when six

Never finished college--hung out on streets of Santiago

Lots of girlfriends, three wives

Early poems were about love “To hear the immense night, more immense without her And the verse falls onto my soul like dew onto grass.” “I like it when you’re quiet. It’s as if you weren’t here now And you heard me from a distance….”

Diplomatic postings Burma, Java, Ceylon, Singapore Often lonely, didn’t speak language Love troubles—pursued by Josie Bliss Married a Dutch girl—short marriage Wrote “Walking Around.”

Spanish Civil War, 1930s

Wrote poem soldiers carried into battle You will ask why his poetry doesn’t speak to us of dreams, of the leaves of the great volcanoes of his native land. Come and see the blood in the street Come and see the blood in the streets come and see the blood in the streets!

Part Native-American

Became a Communist in 1945. Had to flee the country through the Andes Mts.

Returned, married Matilda, happy period of Odes (poems of praise).

Won the Nobel Prize for Literature, 1971 “I return to the streets of my childhood, to the winters of South America….to a dark continent seeking for the light.”

Later years sadder Became Senator Friend, Salvador Allende, elected president. Allende assassinated. September 11, 1973

Neruda Died September 23, 1973. Some say of a broken heart. Some say prostate cancer. Some say poison.

Funeral outlawed, but thousands went anyway.

October Fullness Little by little, and also in great leaps life happened to me. Oerhaps it was my punishment, Perhaps I was condemned to be happy. Let it be known that nobody crossed my path without sharing my being. I plunged up to the neck into adversities that were not mine, Into all the suffering of others.. . .