I'm going to pause for a moment or two and take a shower
and then begin again.
[LAUGHTER]
Poem by the contemporary Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda.
This is a poem called "Nocturnal Collection."
I'll say just a few words about Neruda.
Neruda's one of the most influential
of the poets writing in Spanish.
García Lorca and Neruda, I think,
I would rate just about neck and neck though they're going
in somewhat different directions.
Neruda was born in Chile in 1904.
He was the son of a railroad employee.
He-- as is--
this is often the case, in South American countries,
he was consul for his government.
He was consul to Madrid for a while,
he was Chilean consul to Mexico in 1943,
and he was elected to the Chilean Senate at about 1944.
He has a short essay which has gotten a lot of attention
in the States in the last few years.
The title of the essay is "Toward an Impure Poetry."
I'm going to read two sentences, somewhat long sentences,
from this essay.
He says, "Let that be the poetry we
search for, worn with the hand's obligations as by acids,
steeped in sweat and in smoke, smelling of lilies and urine,
spattered diversely by the trades
that we live by, inside the law or beyond it.
A poetry impure as the clothing we wear
or our bodies, soup-stained, soiled
with our shameful behavior, our wrinkles and vigils and dreams,
observations and prophecies, declarations
of loathing and love, idols and beasts,
the shocks of encounter, political loyalties,
denials and doubts, affirmations, and taxes."
In short, he is after an inclusive poetry.