Title: Los Versos Del Capitan
Author: Pablo Neruda

by Julian Esteban Torres

At the J.W. Marriott employee cafeteria in Orlando, I sat every day for a week during my midday break, having lunch with Pablo Neruda. My parents had bought me an underground published copy of his works during their last trip to Colombia last February but had yet given it to me until several weeks ago. The collection of his poetry was entitled, Los Versos Del Capitan (The Verses of the Captain), of which I am sure is not a collection found in the United States, unless imported, like the copy I am currently a proud owner of. I had read much of his work prior to the arrival of this particular one into my hands, but they were always the translated English versions of his poetic works. I was excited about reading this specific book not only because he is one of my favorite poets, or the fact that he is also a South American native, or that he was a recipient of the Nobel Prize in 1971 for Literature, but also because it was the first time I had read a book in my native tongue of Spanish since my last days in Colombia nine years ago.

One day during that week, I was having lunch with Jessica Aranda, a co-worker of mine from the summer, who had previously worked in Chile as a host of a nationally televised variety show. I tend to read when I eat lunch, so she understood why I had a book in my hand. After finishing one of Neruda's poems, I placed the book on the table, flat on its spine, with the face of its pages sprawled out as wings ready to take flight as I, who took a deep breath and tried to allow for the fragrance of his passion to penetrate every pore of my being. She observed this and curiously asked, "What are you reading?" Naively, I responded with, "Pablo Neruda. Have you ever heard of him?" I felt embarrassed to have asked this after one glance at the look on her face, which helped bring back to memory the fact that she too was from Chile.

Pablo's name is like a national landmark in Chile. My response to her question was like going to England and saying, "William Shakespeare. Have you ever heard of him?" I felt as if my comment may have been insulting, so I immediately apologized for my stupidity. I told her that I was so captured by the words that not only lingered on the page as I read but also in my imagination, that I was not thinking clearly. She laughed at my attempt to clear my name and we voyaged into an interesting conversation about Pablo and his home back in Chile. After my apologies, she responded with, "Have I ever heard of Pablo Neruda? My family and I used to go to the little town of Isla Negra, where his house is located, every weekend or so, to get away from it all." Of course, at this point, I closed my book, as I became more interested in where she was going with her story.

She spoke of the similarities between the passion behind his words and his lifestyle, which are both embodied in the house where he resided. After his death in 1973, his home was opened to the public, much like the Elvis Estate in Graceland. For the United Statesian equivalent of five dollars, one can tour the house and listen and experience the life of the poet who is considered by many, Gabriel Garcia Marquez included, as "The greatest poet of the 20th century, in any language." His huge house, long as a ship, resides on the ocean front. Pablo, like Ernest Hemingway, was a glutton for the experience of life.

His house was a two-way mirror of what laid behind his poetic fancy. When one walks in, it is as if one were looking through Pablo's eyes and able to discover the forgotten fingerprints left upon the pencils, pens, and typewriter keys from where he wrote his poesias. In his Nobel lecture, entitled "Towards the Splendid City," he put it well when he said, "Each and every one of my verses has chosen to take its place as a tangible object." Those who have wandered into his private living quarters and bedroom may find this to be true.

This particular collection kidnaps us from our dreaming waking states and takes us to the private areas of all our personal dreams where even we need guidance and a skeleton key to get into. Inside this chamber, we stumble upon doors where words of love, wishes, fury, and the lives of our odes and germinations slumber. The every day essences, fragrances, and experiences of that which is life glow in the dark from within the back rooms of our imagination and are brought unto the forefront of our vision through the verses of this man of words who takes pride in calling the blank page his refuge, asylum, and shelter. "I render my thanks and return to my work, to the blank page which every day awaits us poets so that we shall fill it with our blood and our darkness, for with blood and darkness poetry is written, poetry should be written."

And thus, the words spoken by the lips of this book bleed. However, to truly taste the blood and in unison breathe along with its passion one must kiss it with the tongue of its original language. I would suggest, if one had the choice in what to become in one's next life, to return as a Hispanic so one could truly appreciate the fervor behind every word from this collection of Pablo Neruda's poetry. If not, learning the language may be the next best thing to the English translation, because then one is able to memorize and learn his words by heart, so one can then read his thoughts the way they were meant to be read: with one's eyes closed---within the private quarters, where the essence of our passion meets our imagination.