WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.010 align:middle line:90%


00:00:01.010 --> 00:00:04.610 align:middle line:84%
Want to hear one real
quick poem by Pablo Neruda

00:00:04.610 --> 00:00:07.430 align:middle line:84%
that you probably
haven't ever heard?

00:00:07.430 --> 00:00:14.450 align:middle line:84%
So a few years ago, like
2015 after Pablo Neruda's

00:00:14.450 --> 00:00:18.410 align:middle line:84%
third wife, who ran
his estate, died,

00:00:18.410 --> 00:00:20.540 align:middle line:84%
the Foundation, the
Neruda Foundation

00:00:20.540 --> 00:00:24.350 align:middle line:84%
went through all these boxes,
hundreds and hundreds of boxes

00:00:24.350 --> 00:00:28.220 align:middle line:84%
of his materials, and
they found these poems

00:00:28.220 --> 00:00:30.380 align:middle line:84%
that no one had
ever seen before.

00:00:30.380 --> 00:00:33.440 align:middle line:84%
Written on, I mean, some
were typed up perfectly,

00:00:33.440 --> 00:00:36.140 align:middle line:84%
some were written
on musical scores,

00:00:36.140 --> 00:00:38.300 align:middle line:84%
some were written
on dinner menus,

00:00:38.300 --> 00:00:47.570 align:middle line:84%
and they were published in
Chile, and then in Mexico,

00:00:47.570 --> 00:00:51.590 align:middle line:84%
and I thought at first that
this was a horrible idea that it

00:00:51.590 --> 00:00:53.480 align:middle line:84%
was going to be this
junk that he never

00:00:53.480 --> 00:00:56.240 align:middle line:84%
wanted to have published,
and they were just

00:00:56.240 --> 00:00:59.315 align:middle line:84%
trying to get the last
juice out of those grapes.

00:00:59.315 --> 00:01:01.930 align:middle line:90%


00:01:01.930 --> 00:01:05.019 align:middle line:84%
But then I read the reviews
of the Spanish language

00:01:05.019 --> 00:01:07.520 align:middle line:84%
translations, and
they were great.

00:01:07.520 --> 00:01:10.090 align:middle line:84%
And then I was given
the opportunity

00:01:10.090 --> 00:01:16.030 align:middle line:84%
to translate these 23 poems
no one had seen before,

00:01:16.030 --> 00:01:18.730 align:middle line:90%
and they're really amazing.

00:01:18.730 --> 00:01:20.800 align:middle line:84%
Not all of them
are really amazing,

00:01:20.800 --> 00:01:25.000 align:middle line:84%
but a good percentage of
them are really amazing,

00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:30.430 align:middle line:84%
and I thought I could
read you just one.

00:01:30.430 --> 00:01:35.890 align:middle line:84%
As you probably know, Pablo
Neruda grew up in the sticks.

00:01:35.890 --> 00:01:42.220 align:middle line:84%
His last name was Basoalto,
and he came to Santiago

00:01:42.220 --> 00:01:46.480 align:middle line:84%
as a 19-year-old wanting to
cut his teeth with the poets.

00:01:46.480 --> 00:01:50.500 align:middle line:84%
To meet the city poets, and
to become a poet, but when

00:01:50.500 --> 00:01:58.390 align:middle line:84%
he got there, there were these
incredibly violent protests

00:01:58.390 --> 00:02:01.510 align:middle line:84%
of the workers in
the mines protesting

00:02:01.510 --> 00:02:03.400 align:middle line:90%
for rights and payment.

00:02:03.400 --> 00:02:07.360 align:middle line:84%
And the mine owners had
the police in their hands,

00:02:07.360 --> 00:02:10.014 align:middle line:84%
and the police were
just massacring people.

00:02:10.014 --> 00:02:13.170 align:middle line:90%


00:02:13.170 --> 00:02:18.270 align:middle line:84%
So this is sort of a poem
about that moment in time

00:02:18.270 --> 00:02:24.060 align:middle line:84%
and about how he came to feel
his responsibility as a poet.

00:02:24.060 --> 00:02:25.860 align:middle line:84%
I won't read the
Spanish, because I've

00:02:25.860 --> 00:02:28.395 align:middle line:84%
read too much already, so
this is just the English.

00:02:28.395 --> 00:02:31.310 align:middle line:90%


00:02:31.310 --> 00:02:33.830 align:middle line:90%
I rolled beneath hooves.

00:02:33.830 --> 00:02:37.880 align:middle line:84%
The horses passed
over me like cyclones.

00:02:37.880 --> 00:02:42.470 align:middle line:84%
The moment clutched its flags
and riding the student fervor

00:02:42.470 --> 00:02:44.180 align:middle line:90%
it blew into Chile.

00:02:44.180 --> 00:02:47.030 align:middle line:84%
Sand and blood from
niter quarries,

00:02:47.030 --> 00:02:50.960 align:middle line:84%
coal from backbreaking
mines, copper extracted

00:02:50.960 --> 00:02:53.610 align:middle line:90%
into the snow with our blood.

00:02:53.610 --> 00:02:56.180 align:middle line:90%
And so the map was changing.

00:02:56.180 --> 00:02:59.660 align:middle line:84%
The pastoral nation
bristled into a forest

00:02:59.660 --> 00:03:02.300 align:middle line:90%
of fists and horses.

00:03:02.300 --> 00:03:06.020 align:middle line:84%
And before I turned
20, I received

00:03:06.020 --> 00:03:09.920 align:middle line:84%
amid the blows of police
cudgels the throbbing

00:03:09.920 --> 00:03:12.830 align:middle line:90%
of a vast subterranean heart.

00:03:12.830 --> 00:03:16.250 align:middle line:84%
And in safeguarding
others, I understood

00:03:16.250 --> 00:03:19.550 align:middle line:84%
that their lives
were my own, and I

00:03:19.550 --> 00:03:23.540 align:middle line:84%
came by friends who will
defend me to the last,

00:03:23.540 --> 00:03:28.250 align:middle line:84%
because my poetry though
barely coming into its own

00:03:28.250 --> 00:03:31.130 align:middle line:84%
received the honor
of their agonies.

00:03:31.130 --> 00:03:34.892 align:middle line:90%


00:03:34.892 --> 00:03:35.870 align:middle line:90%
[CLAPPING]

00:03:35.870 --> 00:03:37.660 align:middle line:90%
Thank you.

00:03:37.660 --> 00:03:40.000 align:middle line:90%