Pablo Neruda

1904–1973 · Chile

Love poems, political epics, and odes to onions.

Neruda published Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair at nineteen; it remains one of the best-selling poetry books ever written in Spanish.

He worked as a diplomat, served as a senator, went into exile, and won the Nobel Prize in 1971. His work ranges from adolescent heartbreak to the continental history of Canto General.

Style

Long free-verse lines with sensory saturation — sea, salt, hair, wood, wine.
The Elemental Odes: sustained attention to ordinary objects treated as worthy of praise.
Repetition and cataloguing borrowed from oratory.