Tribute to Pablo Neruda

Educational Guide for Teachers

Tribute to the South American poet and statesman, winner of The Nobel Prize in Literature 1971 on the hundredth anniversary of his birth
prepared by DFW International for the 2004-2005 Tribute www.dfwinternational.org

Sponsored by

PART I Teaching Nerudas poetry

ERUDA: July 12, 2004 to July 11, 2

Poetry that brings alive a continent's destiny and dreams." Poetry in harmony with Man and the Earth. Poetry with the overflowing vitality of an awakening continent

We are grateful for the support of

Born in Chile on July 12, 1904, Pablo Neruda created romantic and epic poetry as well as drama and prose that captured the essence of America. Neruda was Latin Americas most prominent th 20 century poetic voice. His simple words inspired generations lovers and gave voice to the common struggles of peasants, miners, factory workers. His love for the Americas burst forth in images of the sea and the flora and fauna. Neruda was much more than a Nobel Prize winning poet. He was a diplomat, an ambassador to France, a communist senator, a candidate for the presidency of Chile, a political fugitive, the winner of the World Peace Prize. His friends ranged from carpenters and fishermen to Pablo Picasso and Diego Rivera, Ghandi, Che Guevara and Salvador Allende. Neruda was known as the "poet of the people", the voice for the voiceless who fought passionately for social justice. Poetry is an act of peace, he wrote. Peace goes into the making of a poet as flour goes into the making of bread.

"I have always wanted the hands of the people to be seen in poetry. I have always preferred a poetry where the fingerprints show. A poetry of loam, where water can sing. A poetry of bread, where everyone may eat."

Contact us at: neruda@dfwinternational.org

Nerudas vision resonates to all our international populations. Lover, political activist, the voice of the common man--Pablo Neruda speaks to today's concerns and all people. This Teachers Guide was prepared by Anne Marie Weiss-Armush, President of DFW International, for the Tribute to Pablo Neruda centennial festival. It is offered FREE of charge and may be downloaded from our website at www.dfwinternational.org. Questions may be addressed to neruda@dfwinternational.org .

We are especially grateful to Paula Menendez, 6 grade Humanities teacher at the St. Marks School of Texas in Dallas, who created many of the poetry exercises especially for this project. Paula may be reached at menendezp@smtexas.org. Most of the arts and crafts activities were designed by Teresa Nguyen, student at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Every effort has been made to credit sources and to obtain permission for use of materials cited. When translators name is not noted, that particular poem was found on the internet, and the translator was not given.

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INDEX
Part I Teaching Nerudas poetry A. A Guide for Analyzing Poems...3 B. Im explaining a few things Explico algunas cosas5 An Analysis and Imitation of a Protest Poem Sample lesson plan.7 Questions for Discussion..8 Poetry Imitation Activity.9 Spanish Civil War.10 Peace Activity: Children, Terror, and Spain13 Ariel Dorfman essay relating Neruda and the attack of March 11, 2004..14 Childrens Art for Peace project...19 Dramatic Group Reading version of this poem (both English and Spanish)..20 C. Education of the Chieftain 22 Paraphrase and Explication Activity Using Denotation and Connotation23 Student Worksheet for Explication of lines..24 D. Ocean -- a small grammar lesson for a small poem....28 E. Love Poetry Poem 20 Poema 20 29 Questions for Discussion30 If you forget me Si t me olvidas .31 F. The Ode Ode to Clothes Oda al traje ...32 Ode to the Seagull 34 G. Instructions for a Pablo Neruda Poetry Writing Workshop for ages 10-16......35 for ages 15 to college..36 H. Poetry for Social Justice..37 The Enemy El enemigo .39 The United Fruit Company La United Fruit Company ..,40 An Analysis of The United Fruit Company.. 41 Un Anlisis de 'La United Fruit Company'.43 We are Many Muchos somos ...44 When? Cuando de Chile..45 For African American students ..48 I. Excerpts from poems for Primary School Children......47 To a foot from its child -- Al pie desde su nio .......49 Here .......49 I dont want my country to be divided -- Yo no quiero la Patria dividida.50 Sad Song to Bore Everyone Triste cancin para aburrir a cualquiera ..50 Bestiary Bestiario .....50 Ocean Ocano ...51 Ode to the Rooster ..52 Ode to the Yellow Bird ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,51 Ode to the Black Panther ..52 Ode to the Apple.52

A Guide for Analyzing Poems

by David Coogan Assistant Professor of English Lewis Department of Humanities, Armour College Illinois Institute of Technology Poems can sometimes mystify us. Other times they can affect us so strongly, we hardly know where to begin talking about what we felt, heard, or understood from the poem. To get started, we usually ask ourselves what did it mean? but that question doesnt always help. Its too general. It may help to break down the intent behind the question and ask ourselves what has been said and how was it said and why was it said in this particular way? Heres how. 1. Experience before you analyze. If you have seen the film about Neruda Il Postino, do like the postman Mario did: simply explain how the poem makes you feel. Write it down. Then return to the text and identify the passages that made you feel this way. 2. Make a chronology of what happened in the poem so you can say it back to yourself. Why is it important that the lines appear in this order and not in some other order? If you rearrange the lines or take away certain words or sections, what happens to the meaning of the poem? Can you divide the poem into sections or movements? 3. What is the authors attitude toward his subject? Does he offer any moral lessons, warnings, jokes, statements of truth, complaints, or provocations? If so, what do they imply? 4. Describe the voice you hear in the poem. Is it angry, sad, impatient, jealous, exalted, wise, suspicious, or something else? Question the poets choice of wordsthe diction and the vocabularyand his line breaks. If you change the vocabulary or the break the lines another way, can you change the voice or the intent of the poem? 5. Listen to the sounds of the language. As a point of reference, when we talk about vowel sounds, we are talking about assonance. An example of this in Spanish from Explico Unas Cosas would be pero de cada casa muerta sale metal ardiendo or (the vowel a in cada and casa and muerta etc). When we talk about consonant sounds, we are talking about alliteration. An example of this from Im Explaining a Few Things would be bandits with black friars spattering blessings (the b sound). Do these sounds emphasize the authors intent? If so, how do they guide your experience of the theme? 6. Explore the logic of the metaphors. Begin by separating the elements and defining them. Then ask yourself how one NORMALLY experiences or understands each thing. Finally, put the metaphor back together again. Example: in Ode to the Seagull, Neruda says to the seagull, lift up / your emblem across / the shirt / of the cold firmament Separating and defining the elements: Okay, we know that an emblem is an object that functions like a symbol. (For example, the three arrows shaped in a triangle = the emblem for recycling) Next comes the shirt. We all know what a shirt is. And last comes the firmament--a fancy word for sky: the expanse of the heavens. How do we normally experience/understand the elements? Normally, we see emblems in society, not in nature. And we see shirts on other people. We wear shirts to protect

our body from the elements and to hide it from other people. And we dont see firmaments. We see the sky. Putting it all together. To say that the bird is an emblem is to say that the bird is functioning as a symbol. By placing this symbol in the firmament, Neruda endows it with cosmic or heavenly significance. This, of course, fits the purpose of the odesto praise common things. But the seagull is not the only thing getting praised. Neruda places this symbol of heavenly wisdom on the shirt of the cold firmament. By choosing to endow the heavens with this human quality (wearing a shirt), he seems to be saying that the heavens are really here on earth: the mysteries of life are human mysteries that can be analyzed from a human point of view, in this case, a person watching a bird. Ultimately, what the person observes out there is not God but humanity, because the birds movements through the sky are analogous to our own movements through life. We wear the shirt with the bird-emblem on it. And underneath the shirt is our own bodynot the the heavens. 7. Finally, return to your original questionwhat does the poem mean? Although individual poems will have individual meanings, they will also share something in common with the authors other work. In what ways is this poem like the authors other poems you read? To answer this question is to define the authors poetics, where poetics = what was said (content) + how it was said (form).

Im Explaining a Few Things An Analysis and Imitation of a Protest Poem grades 6-12
by Paula Menendez St. Marks School of Texas Dallas, TX Overview: Following the questions below, students will analyze the style, structure and meaning of this protest poem and then write a poem of their own using Nerudas persuasive technique. Partners or small discussion groups are recommended in more advanced classes, while younger/ weaker students might benefit from a whole-class discussion. Time required: Two 45-minute sessions. Content and skills covered (not introduced hereonly reinforced): A. History: Spanish Civil War B. English: Discussion Questions cover an analysis of audience tone and how it contributes to meaning persuasive technique Poetry Imitation Activity covers the application of the above and reinforcement of the use of: sound devices imagery word choice simile and metaphor

Im Explaining a Few Things

translated by Nathaniel Tarn You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs? and the poppy-petalled metaphysics? and the rain repeatedly spattering its words and drilling them full of apertures and birds? I'll tell you all the news. I lived in a suburb, a suburb of Madrid, with bells, and clocks, and trees. From there you could look out over Castille's dry face: a leather ocean. My house was called the house of flowers, because in every cranny geraniums burst: it was a good-looking house with its dogs and children. Remember, Raul? Eh, Rafael? Federico, do you remember from under the ground do you remember my house with balconies on which the light of June drowned flowers in your mouth? Brother, my brother! Everything loud with big voices, the salt of merchandises, pile-ups of palpitating bread, the stalls of my suburb of Arguelles with its statue like a drained inkwell in a swirl of hake: oil flowed into spoons, a deep baying of feet and hands swelled in the streets, metres, litres, the sharp measure of life, stacked-up fish, the texture of roofs with a cold sun in which the weather vane falters, the fine, frenzied ivory of potatoes, wave on wave of tomatoes rolling down to the sea. And one morning all that was burning, one morning the bonfires leapt out of the earth devouring human beings and from then on fire, gunpowder from then on,

Explico unas cosas

Preguntaris: Y dnde estn las lilas? Y la metafsica cubierta de amapolas? Y la lluvia que a menudo golpeaba sus palabras llenndolas de agujeros y pjaros? Os voy a contar todo lo que me pasa. Yo viva en un barrio de Madrid, con campanas, con relojes, con rboles. Desde all se vea el rostro seco de Castilla como un ocano de cuero. Mi casa era llamada la casa de las flores, porque por todas partes estallaban geranios: era una bella casa con perros y chiquillos. Ral, te acuerdas? Te acuerdas, Rafael? Federico, te acuerdas debajo de la tierra, te acuerdas de mi casa con balcones en donde la luz de junio ahogaba flores en tu boca? Hermano, hermano! Todo eran grandes voces, sal de mercaderas, aglomeraciones de pan palpitante, mercados de mi barrio de Argelles con su estatua como un tintero plido entre las merluzas: el aceite llegaba a las cucharas, un profundo latido de pies y manos llenaba las calles, metros, litros, esencia aguda de la vida, pescados hacinados, contextura de techos con sol fro en el cual la flecha se fatiga, delirante marfil fino de las patatas, tomates repetidos hasta el mar. Y una maana todo estaba ardiendo y una maana las hogueras salan de la tierra devorando seres, y desde entonces fuego, plvora desde entonces,

and from then on blood. Bandits with planes and Moors, bandits with finger-rings and duchesses, bandits with black friars spattering blessings came through the sky to kill children and the blood of children ran through the streets without fuss, like children's blood. Jackals that the jackals would despise, stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out, vipers that the vipers would abominate! Face to face with you I have seen the blood of Spain tower like a tide to drown you in one wave of pride and knives! Treacherous generals: see my dead house, look at broken Spain: from every house burning metal flows instead of flowers, from every socket of Spain Spain emerges and from every dead child a rifle with eyes, and from every crime bullets are born which will one day find the bull's eye of your hearts. And you'll ask: why doesn't his poetry speak of dreams and leaves and the great volcanoes of his native land? Come and see the blood in the streets, come and see the blood in the streets, come and see the blood in the streets!

y desde entonces sangre. Bandidos con aviones y con moros, bandidos con sortijas y duquesas, bandidos con frailes negros bendiciendo venan por el cielo a matar nios, y por las calles la sangre de los nios corra simplemente, como sangre de nios. Chacales que el chacal rechazara, piedras que el cardo seco mordera escupiendo, vboras que las vboras odiaran! Frente a vosotros he visto la sangre de Espaa levantarse para ahogaros en una sola ola de orgullo y de cuchillos! Generales traidores: mirad mi casa muerta, mirad Espaa rota: pero de cada casa muerta sale metal ardiendo en vez de flores, pero de cada hueco de Espaa sale Espaa, pero de cada nio muerto sale un fusil con ojos, pero de cada crimen nacen balas que os hallarn un da el sitio del corazn. Preguntaris por qu su poesa no nos habla del sueo, de las hojas, de los grandes volcanes de su pas natal? Venid a ver la sangre por las calles, venid a ver la sangre por las calles, venid a ver la sangre por las calles!

Im Explaining a Few Things Questions for Discussion

1. Starter: Before reading the poem, ask this question: What purposes can poetry serve? Take a few moments to brainstorm on the board, asking students to throw out as many ideas as possible. 2. Read the poem aloud once all the way through, with students following along with a pencil in hand, underlining words and phrases that jump out at them for some reason. 3. After reading aloud, and looking back at the list on the board, what general purpose(s) does this poem seem to serve? 4. How does the speaker in the poem feel about his subject matter? What words let you know his attitude? 5. Have students share with the class the words they underlined. Explain that these heavily charged words contribute to the overall tone of the poem. 6. For the second reading, pre-assign different stanzas to different students and let them read aloud once again, this time trying to place an emphasis on the emotional tone of each stanza. As one classmate reads, all others now label in the margins the tone of each stanza. 7. Where are there subtle and dramatic shifts in tone? Discuss and see who agrees. 8. Where is the most sudden shift in tone? 9. Explain Nerudas purpose in creating the contrast in tone. What argumentative purpose does this serve, and how successful do you think it is? 10. To whom is this poem addressed? 11. What general statement(s) does Neruda seem to be making (about war? about life? about flowers? about poetry? etc. . .) 12. How does the tone of a passage or poem affect the meaning of the piece? 13. If Neruda had only written the second half of the poem, and not described life in Argelles before the war, how would that change the poem?

Im Explaining a Few Things Poetry Imitation Activity

As you have seen, poetry can be a very powerful way to express your opinions. In this activity, you will write your own poem of protest about an issue that is important to you. Purposes of this activity: to make a strong argument for your cause and to practice some of the techniques you have studied. 1. Choose an issue about which you feel a strong opinion. 2. Now get a partner and brainstorm aloud for 3 minutes with your partner taking brief notes and writing down key phrases. Talk about everything you can think of relating to this topic. Go ahead and allow yourself to get fired up about your cause, talking about why it is important, how things could be different, and especially citing examples of people, things, and situations affected by this issue. After 3 minutes, switch places with your partner. Take notes while he/she talks about a different topic. 3. Read back over the notes your partner took. Circle or highlight key words or phrases that catch your eye for any reason. Look for concrete images and strong tone words. These will serve as a bank of ideas for your poem. 4. Now begin to write your poem using your word bank. Do not attempt to make the ends of lines rhyme, or you may become distracted from the true meaning of your message. 5. Follow the tips below to create a poem that packs a punch: a. Show, Dont Tell: Do not mention the cause, but make a few small references to it. Your poem is an illustration, not a lecture. b. Shift in Tone: by showing a contrast between two things, situations, or people, you show your audience that you are right, rather than telling them. c. Word Choice: Carefully choose words that convey your desired tone. Be prepared to read your work aloud to the class. d. Simile and metaphor: these comparisons can appeal to the five senses and captivate your audience (I have seen the blood of Spain tower like a tide to drown you in one wave) e. Sound devices (repetition, rhyme, alliteration, assonance, consonance, etc. ex: kill children, poppy-petalled) make the words quietly stick in the audiences mind. Poetry is to be read aloud. f. Audience: Be aware of who you are addressing in this poem. How does your choice of audience affect your poem?

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THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR Although Pablo Neruda was not a native Spaniard, he certainly took sides in the Spanish Civil War. Below are a map and excerpts form World Book Online Encyclopedia with information about the Spanish Civil War.

World Book map: Spanish Civil War The Nationalists quickly captured about a third of Spain. Republicans held most of the country's industrial areas and large cities, including Spain's capital, Madrid. The superior military strength of the Nationalists eventually triumphed.

Excerpts from World Book Encyclopedia Online Reference Center: Esenwein, George R.. "Spanish Civil War." Feb. 2004. World Book, Inc. http://www.worldbookonline.com/ar?/na/ar/co/ar522980.htm. Overview: Spanish Civil War was a bitter, bloody conflict that took place from 1936 to 1939. It was fought between the forces of Spain's democratically elected, liberal government and conservative rebels. The war cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Spaniards and set the stage for a dictatorship that lasted more than 35 years. The conservative or right-wing forces that fought against the government were known as Nationalists. They included military leaders, segments of the Roman Catholic Church, groups that wanted Spain to become a monarchy again, and fascists. The fascists were members of a political party called the Falange Espanola (Spanish Phalanx). Like similar groups in Germany and Italy, the fascists wanted to set up a dictatorship. The forces that fought on the side of the government were known as Republicans. They included a variety of liberal or left-wing groups, such as socialists, Communists, and anarchists (those who believe people should live without government).

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Much of the world viewed the Spanish Civil War as a contest between democracy and fascism. It became a major source of concern for many nations, which believed that the outcome could determine the balance of power in Europe. Many people who felt strongly about the war held fundraising rallies and publicized the international issues at stake in Spain's domestic conflict. Rebellion leads to civil war. On July 17, 1936, Spanish army units stationed in Morocco launched a rebellion against the Spanish government. The revolt soon spread to Spain itself. The rebels hoped to overthrow the government quickly and restore order in Spain. But Republican forces took up arms against the military. Within four days after the start of the uprising, the rebels controlled about a third of Spain. The Republicans controlled Spain's industrial centers and most of its densely populated towns and cities, including the capital, Madrid. On both sides, a wave of terror and repression followed the chaos and confusion of the military uprising. The Nationalists shot thousands of workers and Republican supporters living in areas under their control. In the Republican zone, thousands of civilians were executed by working-class groups fearful of a reaction from rebel supporters. In some areas held by Republicans, workers belonging to anarchist and other left-wing organizations dismantled existing government institutions. They replaced them with agricultural and industrial collectivesthat is, groups jointly owned by their workersand with bodies known as people's committees that intended to rule on behalf of the working classes. In late July 1936, the Nationalists set up a government in Burgos called the Junta de Defensa Nacional (Council of National Defense). In September, this group chose Francisco Franco to serve as both commander-in-chief of the armed forces and head of the Nationalist government. Franco and his advisers based the new government on fascist and conservative principles and created a prominent role in the government for the Roman Catholic Church. By the end of 1937, all the forces on the Nationalist side had merged into a state system under Franco's leadership. Progress of the war. Early in the war, the Nationalists demonstrated superior military strength. By the first week of November 1936, rebel troops were closing in on Madrid, hoping to occupy the capital quickly. The determined resistance of the city's population, supported by newly organized units of the International Brigades and Republican troops, stopped the Nationalist advance. The Republicans also defeated the Nationalists at the Jarama River near Madrid in February 1937 and at Guadalajara in March. But they lost the coastal city of Malaga to the Nationalists on February 8. With the Madrid front stalled, Franco decided to launch a major offensive in the north. As part of this operation, on April 26, 1937, bombers of the German Condor Legion attacked the small market town of Guernica. They destroyed much of the town center and killed over 1,500 civilians, according to most estimates. News of the bombing generated a storm of international protests and demonstrations, and the incident became known as a symbol of fascist brutality. The Spanish painter Pablo Picasso captured the terror of the bombing in his masterpiece Guernica. The Nationalists continued their northern assault. The city of Bilbao fell in June. A few months later, the Nationalists conquered the northern coastal areas and industrial regions that had been under Republican control. A major Nationalist offensive launched in the region of Aragon in March 1938 led farther into Republican territory. Franco's army pushed east through the region and reached the Mediterranean Sea by mid-April, cutting the Republican-controlled zone in two. Franco's advance on Valencia, to the south, was interrupted by the Republican army's last major offensive, the Battle of the Ebro. This battle, fought from July to November 1938, was the longest of the war. Despite early Republican gains, the Nationalists eventually halted the attack. The Republican defeat paved the way for the Nationalists' march on Catalonia in the northeast. By the

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end of January 1939, most of the region, including Barcelona, was in Nationalist hands. Republican troops and their civilian supporters retreated toward the Spanish-French frontier. Republican forces were plagued by disagreements among themselves throughout the war. By 1939, internal political disputes had split the Republicans into two warring groups. The government of Juan Negrin, who had come to power in 1937, wanted to continue fighting. But an alliance of left-wing parties considered further resistance useless. In March, this alliance set up its own government in Madrid. Shortly afterward, Negrin's government collapsed. As street fighting broke out between pro- and anti-Communist forces in Madrid and elsewhere, representatives of the new government sought in vain to negotiate a surrender with the Nationalists. On March 28, Franco's troops began entering the capital. The remaining Republican forces throughout Spain surrendered, and Franco announced on April 1 that the war was over. Results of the war. The Spanish Civil War resulted in widespread destruction. Estimates of the numbers of people killed during the conflict vary. Many experts estimate that from 600,000 to 800,000 people died as a result of the war, including deaths caused by combat, bombing, execution, and starvation. Following the war, Franco established a harsh right-wing dictatorship. He had thousands of Republican supporters executed and outlawed all political parties but his own. Spain did not return to democracy until after Franco's death in 1975. QUESTIONS Further questions about the Spanish Civil War and its role in Im Explaining a Few Things: a. Describe each of the two sides in this war. Who were they, and what political points of view did they represent? b. Read Nerudas poem another time. Can you tell which side Neruda supported? c. Based on your knowledge of the Spanish Civil War, whom did Neruda refer to as bandits and treacherous generals? d. In your opinion, was Nerudas anger justified?

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Peace Activity: Children, Terror, and Spain

by Anne Marie Weiss-Armush DFW International This materials in this section relate the bombing of the Madrid trains on March 11, 2004 and hopes for peace to Nerudas Explico Unas Cosas. A. Background material for teachers: excerpt from essay NERUDA frente al terror en Madrid by Ariel Dorfman (Chilean historian, philosopher) B. Childrens art from the Spanish Civil War, currently touring the US in the form of an educational exhibit that promotes peace 1. They Still Draw Pictures collection 2. They Still Draw Pictures exhibit touring the US in 2004
C.

Creative art project about peace

We appreciate the collaboration of ALBA, the Abraham Lincon Brigades Archives (see www.albavalb.org/), whose materials we have adapted with permission. ALBA is a non profit national

organization devoted to the preservation and dissemination of the history of the North American role in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and its aftermath. ALBA supervises a major archive at New York University's Tamiment Library--the most comprehensive historical archive documenting the involvement of North American volunteers in the Spanish Civil War--and supports cultural and educational activities related to the war and its historical, political, artistic, and biographical heritage.

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Words That Pulse Among Madrid's Dead

Neruda's verses howl against terror today and yesterday -- testimony to the courage of Spain's people from the L.A.Times March 21, 2004 By Ariel Dorfman Madrid is no stranger to bombs. Almost 70 years ago, as the Civil War was beginning, Spain's capital suffered devastating attacks from the air. With the support of Hitler and Mussolini, the insurgent forces commanded by Gen. Francisco Franco targeted the civilian population of Madrid in the hope that the democratically elected government would capitulate. Living in that city at the time was the great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, and he left behind a series of memorable poems denouncing those assaults and commemorating the resistance of ordinary people. By a strange coincidence not the first time history and literature, tragedy and words, colluded in my life one of those poems was on my desk at the very moment when I heard about the terrorist attacks on Madrid on March 11 that left more than 200 dead and so many more wounded. I had been reading that poem, "Explico algunas cosas" ("I explain a few things") over and over again, in preparation for a homage to Neruda to be held at the Kennedy Center in celebration of the centenary of his birth. I had originally chosen to recite that specific poem because I felt it was a way of allowing Neruda to condemn the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the bombs falling upon the innocent, the blood of children that runs, today as yesterday, "simply like blood of children." And I also wanted Neruda's verses to howl against the destruction of so many other cities and lives. "Look at my dead house, look at broken Spain" could refer as well to Santiago de Chile, the capital that Neruda inhabited for so many years, that I saw bombed on that fateful Sept. 11, 1973. And also to New York on fire, that other Sept. 11, the New York that Neruda treasured, the New York that fascinated his friend, Federico Garca Lorca, the Spanish poet killed by fascists in 1936, the New York that had also been visited by smoke and pain and widows. It is always one small group, "jackals that a jackal would despise," that sows death and always others, the many others, overflowing with light, who die, simply die. The poem ended up being more relevant than I had planned. When I finally read it at the Kennedy Center, I understood, as did the audience, that Neruda had captured my mouth, stolen my throat, in order to whisper something far more urgent. The recent bombings in Madrid transformed his words into a requiem for the recent dead: It was Madrid that was again aflame, again the Madrilenos were being attacked by "vipers that vipers would abominate," again the innocent were paying for a war they had not desired or deserved. It was my own beloved Madrid, that city so open to wanderers, the city of Velazquez and Goya and Lope de Vega, where "one morning everything was burning/ and one morning bonfires/ came out of the earth/ devouring humans/," it was Madrid, "and from then on fire/, gunpowder from then on,/ and from then on blood." After the homage, spectators thanked us and the gods of poetry for expressing how these victims of terror replicate and multiply with their deaths so many earlier deaths Madrid today and yesterday, Santiago yesterday, and Baghdad today, New York, Srebrenica, Rwanda and Cambodia.

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But that was not all that Neruda was telling us. There are commentators in America as well as in Spain who have declared that the Spanish people, by punishing the ruling Aznar government and electing a leader opposed to war, have offered up a victory to terrorism, that from now on fanatics will be able to use their lethal weapons to intimidate the free citizens of the world and blackmail the electorate. Such a claim is not only an insult to the maturity and courage of the Spanish people but also an insult to the intelligence of the world itself. They dare to say that of a citizenry that has confronted and isolated the criminal ETA? They dare to sustain such nonsense of the men and women whose parents and grandparents resisted for three years the fascist forces, Mussolini's troops and Hitler's air force, while the world watched with distance and indifference? Those who believe Spaniards are afraid should listen to Neruda. In his poem, he makes the following prophecy: the blood of Spain will rise to drown its murderers "in one single wave/ of pride and knives"; he promises us that "from each dead house burning metal will come." We should not be confused. Just because a sovereign nation decides to reject and oppose an unnecessary, unjust and deceitful war does not mean that the people of that nation are not willing to defend themselves, fight to return Madrid to that moment before the bombs exploded, which Neruda also remembered: I lived in a barrio of Madrid, with bells with clocks, with trees. My house was called the house of flowers. Ral, do you remember? Do you remember, Rafael? Federico, do you remember, dead under the ground, do you remember my house with balconies where the June light drowned the flowers in your mouth? Brother, brother! Yes. Brother, brother! Said to the murdered Garca Lorca and now, so many years later, to those who have again died, said to all those senselessly slaughtered all over the world and who are remembered ceaselessly by a poet who was born 100 years ago and lives now only in the legacy of his words, tendering us consolation and rage and hope once more in these times of tragedy and terror. Ariel Dorfman is author of "Desert Memories: Journeys Through the Chilean North" (National Geographic, 2004) and the upcoming "Other Septembers, Many Americas" (Seven Stories).

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NERUDA frente al terror en Madrid

Por Ariel Dorfman March 21, 2004 from Pgina 21 newspaper (Argentina) and in El Pas (Spain) Qu dira Pablo Neruda si estuviese vivo hoy, si tuviera que contemplar la muerte que ha cado sobre Madrid, la ciudad que tanto am, la ciudad que se clavaba tan profundamente en su corazn? Unos das atrs tuve ocasin de saberlo, de preguntrselo, cuando particip, junto a otros escritores y artistas, en un homenaje al gran vate chileno en el Kennedy Center de Washington D.C. para celebrar el centenario de su nacimiento. Preparando una de mis intervenciones en esa noche de gala, haba decidido yo, hace ya varios meses, que era necesario leerle al pblico norteamericano aquel poema magistral, Explico algunas cosas, que Neruda escribi como respuesta al bombardeo de Madrid por las fuerzas de Franco durante la Guerra Civil espaola. Era una manera, pens yo, de permitirle a Neruda denunciar la invasin de Irak, las bombas que han cado sobre los inocentes, la sangre de los nios que corre, hoy como ayer, simplemente como sangre de nios. Y sent, tambin, que los versos de Neruda podan servir para aullar en contra de la destruccin de tantas otras ciudades y vidas. Mirad mi casa muerta, mirad Espaa rota poda referirse tambin al Santiago de su Chile que Neruda recorri de joven, que yo mismo vi bombardear el 11 de septiembre de 1973 mientras Pablo mora de cncer y de tristeza en Isla Negra. Y tambin a Nueva York bajo el fuego, ese otro 11 de septiembre, el Nueva York que am Neruda y Garca Lorca y tantos otros, envuelto en humo y dolor y luto. Siempre son unos, chacales que el chacal rechazara, que lanzan la muerte y los otros, llenos de luz y latidos, los que mueren, simplemente mueren. Ese era mi plan original: revelar, una vez ms (como si hiciera falta!), cun contemporneo y presente es nuestro Neruda de cada da. Pero, claro, cuando finalmente le el poema en el Kennedy Center, entend yo, y lo entendieron los quinientos norteamericanos que escuchaban en la capital de los Estados Unidos, que Neruda haba decidido tomar mi boca, apropiarse de mi garganta, para susurrarnos algo aun ms urgente. Los recientes atentados criminales de Madrid convertan sus palabras en responsorio: era Madrid la que arda nuevamente, eran nuevamente los madrileos atacados por las vboras que las vboras odiaran, nuevamente eran los inocentes que pagaban por una guerra que ellos no haban deseado ni merecido. Era mi propio Madrid, donde una maana todo estaba ardiendo/, y una maana las hogueras/ salan de la tierra devorando seres/, era Madrid, y desde entonces fuego, plvora desde entonces,/ y desde entonces sangre. As lo entendi el pblico all, en el Kennedy Center. En cada conversacin despus de nuestro homenaje, una y otra vez, se me acercaban interlocutores para agradecerme a m para qu a m, si era Neruda el que haba escrito aquello, si era Neruda el que me haba elegido desde ms all de la muerte para que repitiera sus versos desafiantes? para agradecernos a nosotros y a los dioses de la poesa, esa manera de expresar y recordar a estas vctimas del terror que duplican con su muerte tantas muertes anteriores, tanto terror que sigue y sigue, Madrid hoy y ayer, Santiago ayer y Bagdad hoy, Nueva York y Sbrenica y Ruanda y Cambodia. Pero no era solamente eso lo que Neruda nos estaba confirmando. Hay comentaristas norteamericanos como los hay en Espaa que han declarado que el modo en que reaccion el pueblo de ese pas, castigando al gobierno de Aznar, ha sido una victoria del terrorismo, la manipulacin de la democracia por los fanticos que ahora pueden usar sus armas destructivas para amedrentar a los ciudadanos libres del mundo y chantajear el proceso electoral. Tal argumento no es solamente un insulto a la madurez y la valenta de los espaoles, sino que es a la vez un insulto a la inteligencia. Se atreven a decir eso acerca de un pueblo que ha sabido oponerse por millones a los criminales y asesinos de ETA? Se atreven a sostener tal patraa acerca de hombres y mujeres cuyos padres y abuelos resistieron tres

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aos el asalto de los fascistas espaoles y el podero de Hitler y Mussolini mientras el mundo los abandonaba a su suerte? Escuchen bien a Neruda quienes crean que los espaoles tienen miedo. El profetiza en su poema que la sangre de Espaa se levantar para ahogar a sus asesinos en una sola ola de orgullo y de cuchillos, l nos asegura que de cada casa muerta sale metal ardiendo. No hay que confundirse. Porque un pueblo rechace y se oponga a una guerra innecesaria, mentirosa e injusta, no significa que ese mismo pueblo no est dispuesto a defenderse, a devolver a Madrid otra vez a ese momento anterior a las bombas que tambin recordaba Neruda: Yo viva en un barrio de Madrid, con campanas, con relojes, con rboles. Ral, te acuerdas? Te acuerdas, Rafael? Federico, te acuerdas, debajo de la tierra, te acuerdas de mi casa con balcones en donde la luz de junio ahogaba flores en tu boca? Hermano, hermano! S, en efecto. Con Neruda decimos, volvemos a decir a cien aos de su nacimiento, volveremos a decir cuntas veces haga falta: Hermano, hermano!

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Childrens Drawings of the Spanish Civil War

from: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eresources/exhibitions/children/about.html Drawings may be viewed at: http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/tsdp/ During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) children were evacuated from the war zones to colonies in the warfree areas of Spain and in the south of France. Drawings by these children were collected from throughout Spain in a concerted effort of the Spanish Board of Education and the Carnegie Institute of Spain. Over 850 of these drawings have been identified in a variety of locations. The Friends published sixty of them with a prologue by Aldous Huxley under the title And they still draw pictures! Several printings were sold for $1 each for the same fund. The majority of the drawings known today (609) have been collected by the University of California at San Diego and form part of the Southworth collection in their Mandeville Special Collections (available on the Web at: http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/tsdp/). Harvard University holds another 17, and 15-20 others are in the Philadelphia headquarters of the American Friends Service Committee.

ALBA: They Still Draw Pictures Childrens Art in Wartime

See: http://www.alba-valb.org/exhibits/drawpic/dp_desc.htm http://depts.washington.edu/spanport/main/Press%20Release-%20They%20Still%20Draw%20Pictures.pdf http://www.dartmouth.edu/~news/releases/2003/april/040103.html They Still Draw Pictures is an exhibition of drawings made by children between the ages of six and siteen who have experienced war. Most of the drawings in the exhibition were made more than sixty years ago, in Spain, by children who experienced the Spanish Civil War. In response to all of the fighting and damage that took place during the war, the Spanish government created childrens colonies, or group homes in safe areas of the country. More than 200,000 children were moved away from areas of heavy fighting, and many of them lived in these colonies unitl the war was over. To help the children express their feelings and heal emotionally from their war experiences, the adult caregivers gave them art materials and invited them to draw pictures. They dres their memories of life before the war, their experiences of war and displacement, and their visions of peace. The photos may be downloaded from the sites listed above, along with detailed educational materials. The exhibit is coordinated by ALBA, a non profit educational organization devoted to the preservation and dissemination of the history of the North American role in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and its aftermath. ALBA supervises a major archive at New York University's Tamiment Library--thecomprehensive historical archive documenting the involvement of North American volunteers in the Spanish Civil War--and supports cultural and educational activities related to the war and its historical, political, artistic, and biographical heritage. We include these drawings here because they offer us childrens perspective on the time period captured by Nerudas poem Explico Algunas Cosas as well as computer based art and historical exercises. Complete teaching materials and interactive exercises are included. This exhibit gives students an opportunity to study and analyze a variety of historical documents in the form of childrens artwork drawn during various times of war, and as such provides them practice working with primary sources. The study of art, as primary source documents, helps to bring history to life. Of the 600,000 refugees who sought shelter from Franco's tyranny, more than 200,000 were children. Spain's Republican government responded by establishing colonias infantiles (children's colonies), often in country estates that had been abandoned by fascist sympathizers. In these colonies, young refugees-many of them orphaned or sent by their parents to safety-received schooling and medical care, kept each other company, and produced thousands of drawings that provide a collective testimony of their experiences. Born of the trauma of separation and exile, the drawings are invaluable historical documents, giving physical form to the children's experiences of air raids, brutality, destruction, and homelessness. These pictures also represent daily life in the colonies, preserve the children's memories of life before war, and suggest their future hopes. Children's art from more recent conflicts, drawn from many different sources and spanning the rest of the twentieth

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century, follows the narrative line traced by the Spanish pictures. They reveal both the specificity of particular historical circumstances and the universality of a child's response to the conditions of war and displacement. Deceptively transparent, these drawings speak with an immediacy of war's consequences for its youngest victims.

Art Project for Peace

The the poem Explico algunas cosas is divided into two parts: the first beautiful and peaceful section, that ends with the line Federico, te acuerdas debajo de la tierra? and the second part that describes the bloody war. These two sections are like a painting of the same scene in two different seasons of the year, but instead of summer flowers turning into the snows of winter, they show serene streets filled with comfortable surroundings which are transformed into a landscape of horrors. ASSIGNMENTS to develop consciousness about peace issues 1. ART Using the images in Nerudas Explico Algunas Cosas, create two parallel scenes of Nerudas city or street BEFORE and AFTER the bombing. Try to capture the contrasting emotions and images of the poem in your work. 2. COMPOSITION Write a dialogue between Pablo Neruda and a soldier in the attacking forces, 1936. 3. GEOGRAPHY Using maps of equal scale cut out the shape of Spain and superimpose this shape on the United States, France, Russia, etc. In terms of size, how would you describe Spain? Which U.S. states are comparable in size to Spain? 4. ECONOMICS Prepare a chart that compares the economic and social aspects of life in Spain now that it is a member of the European Union, and in the pre-Civil War era.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS about PEACE created from ALBA materials 1. Although Neruda wrote this poem over 60 years ago, is there anything familiar to you in it? 2. What specific details do you notice in the poem (people, nature, activities, buildings)? 3. Why did Neruda write this poem? 4. For whom did he write this poem? 5. If you could interview Neruda, what kinds of questions would you have for him? 6. What questions does this poem raise in your mind? Where can you find answers to them? 7. How do you think the lives of children changed during the Spanish Civil War? 8. What else does this poem make you want to know about the Spanish Civil War? about Spain? 9. What was going on in the United States during the Spanish Civil War? 10. If a war was fought here in the U.S., how might our lives be different? 11. How might the idea of peace be put into practice in your classroom? School? Community? 12. Write or tell about a time when you helped to create peace in your classroom, school or community. 13. How would YOU help to make your classroom, school or community a more peaceful place? 14. List some things that people can do to help create a world where peace is more possible. What are some things that adults can do? What are some things that children can do? Think big, and think smalland remember that nothing is too small to mention!

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Dramatic Reading for Class or Group Im Explaining a Few Things

translated by Nathaniel Tarn NARRATOR You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs? and the poppy-petalled metaphysics? VOICE 1 and the rain repeatedly spattering VOICE 2 its words and drilling them full of apertures and birds? I'll tell you all the news. NARRATOR I lived in a suburb, a suburb of Madrid, with bells, and clocks, and trees. VOICE 3 From there you could look out over Castille's dry face: a leather ocean. VOICE 4 My house was called the house of flowers, because in every cranny geraniums burst: it was a good-looking house with its dogs and children. NARRATOR Remember, Raul? Eh, Rafael? Federico, do you remember from under the ground my balconies on which the light of June drowned flowers in your mouth? ALL Brother, my brother! VOICE 5 Everything loud with big voices, the salt of merchandises, pile-ups of palpitating bread, VIUCE 6 the stalls of my suburb of Arguelles with its statue VOICE 7 like a drained inkwell in a swirl of hake: oil flowed into spoons, a deep baying VOICE 8 of feet and hands swelled in the streets, metres, litres, the sharp measure of life, VOICE 9 stacked-up fish, the texture of roofs with a cold sun in which the weather vane falters, VOICE 10 the fine, frenzied ivory of potatoes, wave on wave of tomatoes rolling down the sea. VOICE 11 And one morning all that was burning, VOICE 12 one morning the bonfires leapt out of the earth devouring human beings NARRATOR and from then on fire, VOICE 13 gunpowder from then on, Yo viva en un barrio de Madrid, con campanas, con relojes, con rboles. Desde all se vea el rostro seco de Castilla como un ocano de cuero. Mi casa era llamada la casa de las flores, porque por todas partes estallaban geranios: era una bella casa con perros y chiquillos. Ral, te acuerdas? Te acuerdas, Rafael? Federico, te acuerdas debajo de la tierra, te acuerdas de mi casa con balcones en dond la luz de junio ahogaba flores en tu boca? Hermano, hermano! Todo eran grandes voces, sal de mercaderas, aglomeraciones de pan palpitante, mercados de mi barrio de Argelles con su estatua como un tintero plido entre las merluzas: el aceite llegaba a las cucharas, un profundo latido de pies y manos llenaba las calles, metros, litros, esencia aguda de la vida, pescados hacinados, contextura de techos con sol fro en el cual la flecha se fatiga, delirante marfil fino de las patatas, tomates repetidos hasta el mar. Y una maana todo estaba ardiendo y una maana las hogueras salan de la tierra devorando seres, y desde entonces fuego, plvora desde entonces, Preguntaris: Y dnde estn las lilas? Y la metafsica cubierta de amapolas? Y la lluvia que a menudo golpeaba sus palabras llenndolas de agujeros y pjaros? Os voy a contar todo lo que me pasa.

Explico unas cosas

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ALL and from then on blood. ALL quietly slightly louder LL even louder ALL LOUD NARRATOR Bandits with planes and Moors, bandits with finger-rings and duchesses, bandits with black friars spattering blessings came through the sky to kill children and the blood of children ran through the streets without fuss, like children's blood.

y desde entonces sangre. -Bandidos con aviones y con moros, bandidos con sortijas y duquesas, bandidos con frailes negros bendiciendo venan por el cielo a matar nios, y por las calles la sangre de los nios corra simplemente, como sangre de nios. Chacales que el chacal rechazara, piedras que el cardo seco mordera escupiend vboras que las vboras odiaran! Frente a vosotros he visto la sangre de Espaa levantarse para ahogaros en una sola ola de orgullo y de cuchillos! Generales traidores: mirad mi casa muerta, mirad Espaa rota: pero de cada casa muerta sale metal ardiendo en vez de flores, pero de cada hueco de Espaa sale Espaa, pero de cada nio muerto sale un fusil con ojo pero de cada crimen nacen balas que os hallarn un da el sitio del corazn. Preguntaris por qu su poesa no nos habla del sueo, de las hojas, de los grandes volcanes de su pas natal? Venid a ver la sangre por las calles, venid a ver la sangre por las calles, venid a ver la sangre por las calles!

VOICE 14 Jackals that the jackals would despise, VOICE 15 stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out, VOICE 16 vipers that the vipers would abominate! NARRATOR Face to face with you I have seen the blood of Spain tower like a tide to drown you in one wave of pride and knives! VOICES Treacherous generals: ER VOICES see my dead house, ALL look at broken Spain: VOICES from every house burning metal flows instead of flowers, ER VOICES from every socket of Spain Spain emerges VOICE 17 and from every dead child a rifle with eyes, VOICE 18 and from every crime bullets are born VOICE 19 which will one day find the bull's eye of your hearts. NARRATOR And you'll ask: why doesn't his poetry speak of dreams and leaves and the great volcanoes of his native land? VOICES LL (slower but powerful) NARRATOR Come and see the blood in the streets, come and see the blood in the streets, come and see the blood in the streets!

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Education of the Chieftain

translated by Anthony Kerrigan

Educacin del Cacique

Lautaro era una flecha delgada. Elstico y azul fu nuestro padre. Fu su primera edad solo silencio. Su adolescenencia fu dominio. Su juventud fu un viento dirigido. Se prepara como una larga lanza. Acostumbr los pies en las cascadas. Educ la cabeza en las espinas. Ejecut las pruebas del guanaco. Vivi en las madrigueras de la nieve. Acech la comida de las guilas. Arao los secretos del peasco. Entretuvo los ptalos del fuego. Se amamant de primavera fra. Se quem en las gargantas infernales. Fu cazador entre las aves crueles. Se tieron sus mantos de victories. Ley las agresiones de la noche. Sostuvo los derunbes del azufre. Se hizo velocidad, luz repentina. Tom las lentitudes del Otoo. Trabaj en las guaridas invisibles. Durmi en las sbanas del ventisquero. Igual la conducta de las flechas. Bebi la sangre agreste en los caminos. Arrebat el tesoro de las olas. Se hizo amenaza como un dios sombri. Comi en cada cocina de su pueblo. Aprendi el alfabeto del relmpago. Olfate las cenizas esparcidas. Envolvi el corazn con pieles negras. Descifr el espiral hilo del humo. Se construy de fibras taciturnas. Se aceit como el alma de la oliva. Se hizo crystal de transparencia dura. Estudi para viento huracanado. Se combati hasta apagar la sangre. Slo entonces fu digno de su pueblo.

Lautaro* was a slender arrow. Supple and blue was our father. His first years were all silence. His adolescence authority. His youth an aimed wind. He trained himself like a long lance. He habituated his feet in cascades. He schooled his head among thorns. He executed the essays of the guanaco. He lived in the burrows of the snow. He ambushed the prey of eagles. He scratched the secrets from crags. He allayed the petals of fire. He suckled cold springtime. He burned in infernal gorges. He was a hunter among cruel birds. His mantle was stained with victories. He perused the nights aggressions. He bore the sulphur landslides. He made himself velocity, sudden light. He took on the sluggishness of Autumn. He worked with the invisible haunts. He slept under the sheets of snowdrifts. He equaled the conduct of arrows. He drank wild blood on the roads. He wrested treasure from the waves. He made himself menace, like a somber god. He ate from each fire of his people. He learned the alphabet of the lightning. He scented the scattered ash. He wrapped his heart in black skins. He deciphered the spiral thread of smoke. He made himself out of taciturn fibres. He oiled himself like the soul of the olive. He became glass of transparent hardness. He studied to be a hurricane wind. He fought himself until his blood was extinguished. Only then was he worthy of his people.

*an Auracanian (Mapuche) chieftain (translators note)

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Education of the Chieftain

Paraphrase and Explication Activity Using Denotation and Connotation by Paula Menendez St. Marks School of Texas Dallas, TX To the teacher: This poem can be part of an interdisciplinary unit including the history, art and culture of the Mapuche Indians of Chile, as well as more current events (1980 to the present) involving this group of people. You may want to have students read the section on Auracanians (commonly called the Mapuche) from Encyclopedia Britannica that is offered below. This poem could also accompany some of the Mapuche-inspired art projects for younger children offered elsewhere in the DFW International education packet. For the English teacher, however, Education of the Chieftain is rich with metaphor and imagery and can be the subject of a lively discussion among teenagers. Pablo Neruda makes some very strong statements about what it means to be a leader, as well as how the Mapuche chieftains and their people worked with nature to learn and grow. Each individual line depicts one facet of this relationship with nature, a theme found frequently in Nerudas poems. The worksheet activity below includes work with denotation, connotation, and paraphrase. 1. 2. 3. 4. Divide students into pairs and assign each partnership several lines to paraphrase. Provide plenty of dictionaries, both Spanish and English if appropriate for your students. Each pair of students fully explicates their lines following the worksheet below. After they have completed the worksheet for their lines, each pair should report back to the class. These reports may be just the right catalyst for a healthy discussion. If not, below are some questions for further discussion of this poem.

Discussion Questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. How did paraphrasing the lines alter your perspective? If this poem is about education, then who was Lautaros teacher? Do you believe that Lautaro literally performed all of the deeds listed in this poem? How did these deeds make him worthy? (either literally or figuratively) What makes a leader worthy today, in your society? This poem is part of Nerudas larger work, Canto General, published in 1950. Could it be that Neruda was making any larger political statement about the leaders of his own time? Discuss. 7. What role(s) does nature play in this poem?

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Student Worksheet
for Explication of lines from Education of the Chieftain by Paula Menendez A quick read of Education of the Chieftain reveals that Pablo Nerudas poem on Lautaro is clearly about leadership training, relationship with nature, the role of the leader among his people, and more. But upon closer inspection, students will find that each line contains one image that is packed with meaning, adding layer upon layer to the overarching themes that are at first apparent here. For instance, line 12 reads, He scratched the secrets from crags. Okay, picture this in your mind for a moment. A young man is standing next to a crag, scratching it? Listening to it tell secrets? But isnt a crag some kind of cliff? Is he standing there, or crouching over the edge, or perhaps rapelling down the side? What symbolic meaning might each of these possibilities carry? And with what is he scratching? What sort of tool might he use? What secrets might a crag tell? What language would it speak, if any? How would Lautaro know how to listen? Often a line will open up more questions than it can answer, but in this process of questioning, we may find a nugget of truth or beauty that can enhance our understanding and appreciation of the rest of the poem.

1. In the space below, carefully copy the lines you have been assigned to explicate.

2. Fill in the table below with significant words from your lines. a. Use a dictionary to be sure of the denotation (basic definition) of each significant word in these lines. b. Now look carefully back at each of those significant words. What connotations (extra associations) do they carry for you and your partner? Discuss and write down all possible meanings that seem to fit into the context of this poem. Add an additional sheet if needed.

Significant word Example: secret

Denotation known by only a few people and intentionally withheld from general knowledge

Connotations rivate information; too hard to understand asily; knowledge that has been kept quiet; protecting someone from exposure

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3. Next, paraphrase your lines below. In other words, write the meaning of the lines in your own words, not Nerudas or the translators words. Use simple and direct language. (This will undoubtedly require some work, as you try to answer those questions that have come up while studying the lines. Keep in mind that its likely Neruda wanted his reader to think of all the possibilities and not be limited to only one correct answer. Still, try to find an interpretation that seems to fit the context of this poem.)

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Aracuanian (Mapuche) Indigenous peoples

From Encyclopedia Britannica Online Edition
17 Feb. 2004 <http://school.eb.com/eb/article?eu=9322>.

Araucanian: any member of a group of South American Indians that are now concentrated in the fertile valleys and basins of south-central Chile, from the Bo-Bo River in the north to the Toltn River in the south. Although the pre-Columbian Araucanians did not themselves recognize political or cultural unity above the village level, the Spanish distinguished three Araucanian populations geographically: the Picunche living in the north between the Choapa and BoBo rivers, the Mapuche inhabiting the middle valleys, and the Huilliche dwelling in the south between the Toltn River and Chilo Island. The first Araucanians encountered by the Spanish (c. 1536) were the Picunche, who had lived under Inca cultural influence or political domination since the 15th century. The Picunche were accustomed to outside rule and put up very little resistance to the Spanish. By the end of the 17th century, the Picunche had been assimilated into Spanish society and had vanished into the peasant population. The southernmost people, the Huilliche, were too few and too scattered to resist the Spanish for long. They, like the Picunche, vanished into the rural population of Chile. At the time of the Spanish arrival in Chile, most of central Chile was settled by scattered populations of Mapuche (q.v.) farmers who grew corn (maize), beans, squash, potatoes, and other vegetables. They hunted, fished, and kept guinea pigs for meat; llamas were both pack animals and sources of wool for weaving fine fabrics that were traded with the Inca to the north. They had established metalsmithing and pottery-making traditions. The Mapuche were more numerous and less tolerant of foreign domination than the Picunche of the north. In the face of the Spanish threat, the Mapuche formed widespread alliances above the village level, adopted the strategic use of horses in battle, and, in a series of conflicts called the Araucanian wars, successfully resisted Spanish and Chilean control for 350 years. When Pedro de Valdivia's expedition occupied central Chile and founded Santiago in 1541, it met with strong resistance from the Mapuche. In 1550 Valdivia pressed southward and founded Concepcin at the mouth of the Bo-Bo River, but in 1553 he and his followers were defeated by the Mapuche under Lautaro, a chief who had spent about two years in Valdivia's service. After Valdivia's disaster the Mapuche nearly captured Santiago, but the death of Lautaro on the battlefield and a smallpox epidemic among the Indians saved the colony. Another chief, Caupolicn, continued the fight until his capture by treachery and subsequent execution by the Spaniards in 1558. Thereafter the Spaniards pushed the Mapuche into the forest region south of the Bo-Bo, which remained the boundary between the two peoples for three centuries. 27

After the Chileans had annexed slices of Peruvian and Bolivian territory in the War of the Pacific (187984), they subdued the remaining Mapuche in the south; the Mapuche had begun to raid German-speaking settlements there in the late 1840s and had thus prevented further expansion of the white man into the Araucanian homeland. After their defeat by the Chilean army, the Mapuche signed treaties with the Chilean government and were settled on reservations farther to the south. The Mapuche reservations were abolished in the 1980s, and the Mapuche now live in the hundreds of thousands on privately owned plots of former reservation land in Chile and in the towns and cities of Chile and Argentina. In contemporary usage, Araucanian is virtually synonymous with Mapuche.

Additional resources about the Mapuche: http://members.aol.com/mapulink2/english-2/main.html#main_table http://www.bariloche.com.ar/museo/MAPUING.HTM http://www.geocities.com/tourtoirac/index.html http://ancientmexico.com/chile/mapuches/mapuches.html

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Ocean
a small grammar lesson for a small poem by Paula Menendez, St. Marks School of Texas Dallas, TX

Ocean
translated by Alastair Reid Body more immaculate than a wave, salt washing away its own line, and the brilliant bird flying without ground roots.

Ocano
Cuerpo ms puro que una ola, sal que lava la lnea, y el ave lcida volando sin races.

1. Grammar: Examine the grammatical structure of this poem, and you will notice that although it appears to be a sentence, it is in fact a fragment, a mere collection of phrases strung together. By using the present participle form of the verbs washing and flying, Neruda renders this an incomplete thought. 2. Grammar: Identify and label the parts of speech and types of phrases that Neruda uses. (note: the original Spanish contains the same structure.) 3. Grammar: Reword the poem (as little as possible) to make it into a complete sentence. 4. Discussion: How does this change the meaning or maybe just the feel of the poem? Which version do you prefer? Why do you think Neruda chose this structure? 5. Writing: Now choose a topic and write an imitation of the poem, following the same grammatical structure. 6. More writing: Extend this activity by writing a series of small poems that fit together somehow and either form a larger picture of something (your family, a sports event, a scene from nature, description of your bedroom . . .) or tell a story of some kind. 7. Art/Drama: You may choose to illustrate your poem(s), or to read it/them dramatically to the class.

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Poem 20
Translated by W.S. Merwin Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example The night is starry, and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance. The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this I held her in my arms. I kissed her again and again under the endless sky. She loved me, and sometimes I loved her too. How could one not have loved her great still eyes. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. To think that I dont have her. To feel that I have lost her. To hear the immense night, still more immense without her. And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture. What does it matter that my love could not keep her. The night is starry and she is not with me. That is all. In the distance, someone is singing. In the distance. My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer. My heart looks for her, and she is not with me. The same night whitening the same trees. We, of that time, are no longer the same. I no longer love her, thats certain, but how I loved her. My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing. Anothers. She will be anothers. As she was before my kisses. Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes. I no longer love her, thats certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long. Because through nights like this I held her in my arms, my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer and these the last verses that I write for her.

Poema 20
Puedo escribir los versos ms tristes esta noche. Escribir, por ejemplo: La noche est estrellada, y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos. El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta. Puedo escribir los versos ms tristes esta noche. Yo la quise, y a veces ella tambin me quiso. En las noches como sta la tuve entre mis brazos. La bes tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito. Ella me quiso, a veces yo tambin la quera. Cmo no haber amado sus grandes ojos fijos. Puedo escribir los versos ms tristes esta noche. Pensar que no la tengo. Sentir que la he perdido. Or la noche inmensa, ms inmensa sin ella. Y el verso cae al alma como al pasto el roco. Qu importa que mi amor no pudiera guardarla. La noche est estrellada y ella no est conmigo. Eso es todo. A lo lejos alguien canta. A lo lejos. Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido. Como para acercarla mi mirada la busca. Mi corazn la busca, y ella no est conmigo. La misma noche que hace blanquear los mismos rboles. Nosotros, los de entonces, ya no somos los mismos. Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cunto la quise. Mi voz buscaba el viento para tocar su odo. De otro. Ser de otro. Como antes de mis besos. Su voz, su cuerpo claro. Sus ojos infinitos. Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero. Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido. Porque en noches como sta la tuve entre mis brazos, Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido. Aunque ste sea el ltimo dolor que ella me causa, y stos sean los ltimos versos que yo le escribo.

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Poema 20 Questions for Discussion by Paula Menendez St. Marks School of Texas Dallas, TX
1. Why does Neruda say that tonight he can write the saddest lines? Imagine what is happening tonight that makes these lines possible. 2. In your opinion, which lines of this poem are really the saddest? Explain your answer. 3. Notice the ways in which Neruda intertwines images of nature with his expressions of sorrow over his loss. What role(s) do various aspects of nature (stars, trees, the night) play in this poem? Are there comparisons being made, or is there something additional happening here? 4. Explain the apparent contradiction in the third-to-last couplet. Is it possible to love someone and to not love them at the same time? Defend your opinion either way. 5. Do you believe that the poet will be able to forget his lost love? Why or why not?

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If

You Forget Me

Si Tu Me Olvidas
Quiero que sepas una cosa. T sabes cmo es esto: si miro la luna de cristal, la rama roja del lento otoo en mi ventana, si toco junto al fuego la impalpable ceniza o el arrugado cuerpo de la lea, todo me lleva a ti, como si todo lo que existe: aromas, luz, metales, fueran pequeos barcos que navegan hacia las islas tuyas que me aguardan. Ahora bien, si poco a poco dejas de quererme dejar de quererte poco a poco. Si de pronto me olvidas no me busques, que ya te habr olvidado. Si consideras largo y loco el viento de banderas que pasa por mi vida y te decides a dejarme a la orilla del corazn en que tengo races, piensa que en esa da, a esa hora levantar los brazos y saldrn mis races a buscar otra tierra. Pero si cada da, cada hora, sientes que a m ests destinada con dulzura implacable, si cada da sube una flor a tus labios a buscarme, ay amor mo, ay ma, en m todo ese fuego se repite, en m nada se apaga ni se olvida, mi amor se nutre de tu amor, amada, y mientras vivas estar en tus brazos sin salir de los mos.

I want you to know one thing. You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me. Well, now, if little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you little by little. If suddenly you forget me do not look for me, for I shall already have forgotten you. If you think it long and mad, the wind of banners that passes through my life, and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land. But if each day, each hour, you feel that you are destined for me with implacable sweetness, if each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me, ah my love, ah my own, in me all that fire is repeated, in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten, my love feeds on your love, beloved, and as long as you live it will be in your arms without leaving mine.

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Ode to Clothes
Every morning you wait, clothes, over a chair, to fill yourself with my vanity, my love, my hope, my body. Barely risen from sleep, I relinquish the water, enter your sleeves, my legs look for the hollows of your legs, and so embraced by your indefatigable faithfulness I rise, to tread the grass, enter poetry, consider through the windows, the things, the men, the women, the deeds and the fights go on forming me, go on making me face things working my hands, opening my eyes, using my mouth, and so, clothes, I too go forming you, extending your elbows, snapping your threads, and so your life expands in the image of my life. In the wind you billow and snap as if you were my soul, at bad times you cling to my bones, vacant, for the night, darkness, sleep populate with their phantoms your wings and mine. I wonder if one day a bullet from the enemy will leave you stained with my blood and then you will die with me or one day not quite so dramatic but simple, you will fall ill, clothes, with me, grow old

Oda

al traje

Cada maana esperas, traje, sobre una silla que te llene mi vanidad, mi amor, mi esperanza, mi cuerpo. Apenas salgo del sueo, me despido del agua, entro en tus mangas, mis piernas buscan el hueco de tus piernas y as abrazado por tu fidelidad infatigable salgo a pisar el pasto, entro en la poesa, miro por las ventanas, las cosas, los hombres, las mujeres, los hechos y las luchas me van formando me van haciendo frente labrndome las manos, abrindome los ojos, gastndome la boca, y as, traje, yo tambin voy formndote, sacndote los codos, rompindote los hilos, y as tu vida crece a imagen de mi vida. Al viento ondulas y resuenas como si fueras mi alma, en los malos minutos te adhieres a mis huesos vaco, por la noche la oscuridad, el sueo pueblan con sus fantasmas tus alas y las mas. Yo pregunto si un da una bala del enemigo te dejar una mancha de mi sangre y entonces te morirs conmigo o talvez no sea todo tan dramtico sino simple, y te irs enfermando, traje, conmigo, envejeciendo

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with me, with my body and joined we will enter the earth. Because of this each day I greet you with reverence and then you embrace me and I forget you, because we are one and we will go on facing the wind, in the night, the streets or the fight, a single body, one day, one day, some day, still.

conmigo, con mi cuerpo y juntos entraremos a la tierra. Por eso cada da te saludo con reverencia y luego me abrazas y te olvido, porque uno solo somos y seguiremos siendo frente al viento, en la noche, las calles o la lucha un solo cuerpo talvez, talvez, alguna vez inmvil.

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Ode to the Seagull (fragment)

trans. by Stephen Mitchell To the seagull above the pinewoods of the coast, on the wind the silibant syllable of my ode. Sail along in my verse, shining boat, banner with two wings, body of silver, lift up your emblem across the shirt of the cold firmament, O sky-sailer, smooth serenade of flight, arrow of snow, calm ship in the transparent storm, you raise your equilibrium while the hoarse wind sweeps the meadows of the sky. After your long journey, feathered magnolia, triangle that the air holds up into the heights, slowly you come back to your form closing your silver garment, ovaling your brilliant treasure, become once again a white bud of flight, round seed, egg of beauty..

Oda a la Gaviota (excerpto)

A la gaviota sobre los pinares de la costa, en el viento la slaba silbante de mi oda. Navega, barca lcida, bandera de dos alas, en mi verso, cuerpo de plata, sube tu insignia atravesada en la camisa del firmamento fro, oh voladora, suave sereneata del vuelo, flecha de nieve, nave tranquila en la tormenta transparente elevas tu equilibrio mientras el ronco viento barre las praderas del cielo. Despus del largo viaje, t, magnolia emplumada, tringulo sostenido por el aire en la altura, con lentitud regresas a tu forma cerrando tu plateada vestidura, ovalando tu ntido tesoro, volviendo a ser botn blanco del vuelo, germen Redondo, huevo de la hermosura.

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Instructions for a Pablo Neruda Poetry Writing Workshop

for ages 10-16 by David Coogan Assistant Professor of English Lewis Department of Humanities, Armour College Illinois Institute of Technology
Nerudas primary poetic form was the ode-- a song of praise. But Neruda did not praise elite things but common things. Neruda worked hard to make objects that people could pick up easily in their hands. He worked concretely, at the level of the metaphor, to raise the status of humble objects to an exalted, spiritual level. He did this not to remove them from our everyday lives or to make still-lifes out of them, but to elevate our everyday lives and endow them meaning. Neruda praised things by using metaphor. He also liked to personify objects or address them directly or tell little narratives about them. But through metaphor, he makes his most compelling humanist arguments linking the self with the earth and with culture and the cosmos. Hence in this assignment, Id like you write an ode, paying special attention to your use of metaphors. The following instructions may help you get started. But feel free to try your own approach: whatever gets you going. 1. Choose an object (food, clothes, animals, furniture, tools, etc.) 2. Or choose an activity (walking, running, drinking, studying, talking). 3. Describe X. What are the physical qualities, the attributes, the important parts? How does X look, feel, sound, taste, smell? 4. What normal functions do you associate with X? 5. What experiences have you had with X? 6. What could X be like? 7. Can we understand X like Y? 8. If X has no sound, what sound would you imagine it to have? If X has no smell, what would you imagine it to smell like? Etc. 9. What do we gain from speculating about X in terms of Y?

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Instructions for a Pablo Neruda Poetry Writing Workshop

for ages 15- college by David Coogan Assistant Professor of English Lewis Department of Humanities, Armour College Illinois Institute of Technology
Neruda welcomes us into a dialogue with the world. There is no division between what is common and what is rare; what is human and what is animal; what is sacred and what is profane. He unifies it all with metaphors that put human beings at the center. For example, in Ode to the Seagull, Neruda says to the seagull, lift up / your emblem across / the shirt / of the cold firmament Lets go through this metaphor to see how it works. Separating and defining the elements Okay, we know that an emblem is an object that functions like a symbol. (For example, the three arrows shaped in a triangle is the emblem for recycling) Next comes the shirt. We all know what a shirt is. And last comes the firmament--a fancy word for sky: the expanse of the heavens. How do we normally experience/understand the elements? Normally, we see emblems in society, not in nature. And we see shirts on other people. We wear shirts to protect our body from the elements and to hide it from other people. And we dont see firmaments. We see the sky. Putting it all together To say that the bird is an emblem is to say that the bird is functioning as a symbol. By placing this symbol in the firmament, Neruda endows it with cosmic or heavenly significance. This, of course, fits the purpose of the odesto praise common things. But the seagull is not the only thing getting praised. Neruda places this symbol of heavenly wisdom on the shirt of the cold firmament. By choosing to endow the heavens with this human quality (wearing a shirt), he seems to be saying that the heavens are really here on earth: the mysteries of life are human mysteries that can be analyzed from a human point of view, in this case, a person watching a bird. Ultimately, what the person observes out there is not an abstract God but humanity: the birds movements through the sky are analogous to our own movements through life. We wear the shirt with the bird-emblem on it. And underneath the shirt is our own bodynot the the heavens. Another example Ode to Bird Watching makes the humanist case plain. It is a sacred conversation that we are listening for in the bird chirpsa luminous grace. Later on, however, he imagines these chirps as bragging, or as a discourse on scientific matters. So, while the birds are speaking in a heavenly whisper they are also speaking like everyday people (braggarts, scientists, and so on). See if you can tap into the logic of Nerudas metaphors. Begin by separating the elements and defining them. Then ask yourself how one NORMALLY experiences or understands each thing. End by putting the metaphor back together, with an eye toward explaining the unity of self, environment, culture, and cosmos. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Choose an object (food, clothes, animals, furniture, tools, etc.) Or choose an activity (walking, running, drinking, studying, talking). Describe X. What are the physical qualities, the attributes, the important parts? How does X look, feel, sound, taste, smell? What normal functions do you associate with X? What experiences have you had with X? What could X be like? Can we understand X like Y? If X has no sound, what sound would you imagine it to have? If X has no smell, what would you imagine it to smell like? Etc. What do we gain from speculating about X in terms of Y?

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NERUDA, the Voice of the People Poetry for Social Justice

by David Coogan Assistant Professor of English Lewis Department of Humanities, Armour College Illinois Institute of Technology Pablo Neruda is often described as a poet of the people. And its easy to see why. Nerudas work as a statesman in the communist party of Chile, during the middle part of the 20th century, made him a political representative of the people. And this political work (especially campaigning) put him in contact with all kinds of hard working men and women. It also challenged him to link his art with the reality of these peoples lives. According to Nerudas memoir, this political-poetic awakening came about when the young, country boy from the southern part of Chile (Temuco) went north, to the city of Santiago, to become a student and a writer. We students supported the rights of the people and were beaten up by the police in the streets of Santiago. Thousands of jobless nitrate and copper workers flocked to the capital. The demonstrations and the subsequent repression left a tragic stain on the life of the country. From that time on, with interruptions now and then, politics became part of my poetry and my life. In my poems I could not shut the door to the street, just as I could not shut the door to love, life, joy, or sadness in my young poets heart. (Memoirs, 53). The door remained open his entire life. When he went to Spain to fulfill his duties as the Chilean consulate, he met the Spanish poet, Garica Lorca. Their literary exchange and camraderie was solidified when both became involved in the Spanish civil war, fighting alongside other Spanish loyalists against the Fascists. Then, one night, Lorca was assassinated. Neruda returned to Chile, devastated. At this point in his political career, he had not yet joined the communist party. So, because I had taken part in the defense of the Spanish Republic, he explains, the Chilean government decided to remove me from my post (126). The punishment only strengthened his resolve. What his government could not remove was the conviction that Poetry is an act of peace. Peace goes into the making of a poet as flour goes into the making of bread (137). Lorca had been assassinated because he was fighting for peace. Neruda made it his ambition to use the art of poetry to bring about peace and love. I believe I was born not to pass judgment but to love (Memoirs, 46). Or again: I go on believing in the possibility of love. I am convinced that there will be mutual understanding among human beings, achieved in spite of all the suffering, the blood, the broken glass (Memoirs, 274). The essential message of love is not limited to sex. For while Neruda certainly values the erotic qualities of love and celebrates them, he also relies upon the Christ-like love of forgiveness, mercy, humility, and strength. He felt people would respond to a poetry as simple as love, as pure as human desire. And he was right. I have gone through a difficult apprenticeship and a long search, he explains in his Memoirs, and also through the labyrinths of the written word, to become the poet of my people. That is my reward, not the books and the poems that have been translated, or the books written to explicate or to dissect my words. My rewards is the momentous occasion when, from the depths of the Lota coal mine, a man came up out of the tunnel into the full sunlight on the firey nitrate field, as if rising out of hell, his face disfigured by his terrible work, his eyes inflamed by the dust, and stretching his rough hand out to me, a hand whose calluses and

38

lines trace the map of the pampas, he said to me, his eyes shining: I have known you for a long time, my brother. That is the laurel crown for my poetry, that opening in the bleak pampa from which a worker emerges who has been told often by the wind and the night and the stars of Chile: Youre not alone; theres a poet whose thoughts are with you in your suffering. (171) And again: Poetry . . . has to walk in the darkness and encounter the heart of man, the eyes of woman, the strangers in the streets, those who at twilight or in the middle of the starry night feel the need for at least one line of poetry . . . This visit to the unexpected is worth all the distance covered, everything read, everything learned . . . We have to disappear into the midst of those we dont know, so they will suddenly pick up something of ours from the street, from the sand, from the leaves that have fallen a thousand years in the same forest . . . and will take up gently the object we made . . . Only then will we truly be poets . . . In that object we will live . . . (260)

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The Enemy
Translated by Diana Guillermo

El enemigo
Hoy vino a verme un enemigo. Se trata de un hombre encerrado en su verdad, en su castillo, como en una caja de hierro, con su propia respiracin y las espadas singulares que amamant para el castigo. Mir los aos en su rostro, en sus ojos de agua cansada, en las lneas de soledad que le subieron a las sienes lentaments, desde le orgullo. Hablamos en la claridad de un medio da pululante, con viento que esparca sol y sol combatiendo en el cielo. Pero el hombre slo mostr las nuevas llaves, el camino de todas las puertas. Yo creo que adentro de l iba el silencio que no poda compartirse. tena una piedra en el alma: l preservaba la dureza. Pens en su mequina verdad enterrada sin esperanza de herir a nadie sino a l y mir mi pobre verdad maltratada adentro de m. All estabamos cada uno con su certidumbre afilada y endurecida por el tiempo como dos ciegos que defienden cada uno su oscuridad. .

An enemy visited me today. He is a man imprisoned in his truth, in his castle, as if in an iron strong-box, with his own style of breathing and singular swords that suckled punishment. I saw the years in his face, in his eyes of tired water, in the lines of loneliness that had risen to his eyebrows slowly, from pride. We spoke in the clarity of busy mid-day, with the wind scattering the sun and the sun fighting in the sky. But the man showed me only his new keys, his path to all doors. I think inside, he was full of silence that he could not share. He had a stone in his soul: it was he who preserved its hardness. I thought about his stingy truth buried without hope and hurting only him and I saw my poor truth inside me, abused. There we were, each with his own convictions sharpened and hardened by time like two blind men, each one defending his own darkness.

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The United Fruit Company

translated by John Mitchell When the trumpet sounded everything was prepared on earth, and Jehovah gave the world to Coca-Cola Inc., Anaconda, Ford Motors, and other corporations. The United Fruit Company reserved for itself the most juicy piece, the central coast of my world, the delicate waist of America. It rebaptized these countries Banana Republics, and over the sleeping dead, over the unquiet heroes who won greatness, liberty, and banners, it established an opera buffa: it abolished free will, gave out imperial crowns, encouraged envy, attracted the dictatorship of flies: Trujillo flies, Tachos flies Carias flies, Martinez flies, Ubico flies, flies sticky with submissive blood and marmalade, drunken flies that buzz over the tombs of the people, circus flies, wise flies expert at tyranny. With the bloodthirsty flies came the Fruit Company, amassed coffee and fruit in ships which put to sea like overloaded trays with the treasures from our sunken lands. Meanwhile the Indians fall into the sugared depths of the harbors and are buried in the morning mists; a corpse rolls, a thing without name, a discarded number, a bunch of rotten fruit.

La United Fruit Company

Cuando son la trompeta, estuvo todo preparado en la tierra, y Jehova reparti el mundo a Coca-Cola Inc., Anaconda, Ford Motors, y otras entidades: la Compaa Frutera Inc. se reserv lo ms jugoso, la costa central de mi tierra, la dulce cintura de Amrica. Bautiz de nuevo sus tierras como "Repblicas Bananas," y sobre los muertos dormidos, sobre los hroes inquietos que conquistaron la grandeza, la libertad y las banderas, estableci la pera bufa: enajen los albedros regal coronas de Csar, desenvain la envidia, atrajo la dictadora de las moscas, moscas Trujillos, moscas Tachos, moscas Caras, moscas Martnez, moscas Ubico, moscas hmedas de sangre humilde y mermelada, moscas borrachas que zumban sobre las tumbas populares, moscas de circo, sabias moscas entendidas en tirana. Entre las moscas sanguinarias la Frutera desembarca, arrasando el caf y las frutas, en sus barcos que deslizaron como bandejas el tesoro de nuestras tierras sumergidas. Mientras tanto, por los abismos azucarados de los puertos, caan indios sepultados en el vapor de la maana: un cuerpo rueda, una cosa sin nombre, un nmero cado, un racimo de fruta muerta derramada en el pudridero.

The United Fruit Company, a U.S. concern, is notorious for having economically colonized Central America in particular, using the support of the U.S. politically--and, on occasion, militarily--to ensure its taking of large profits in the region. Dissent within the U.S. against the U.S. government-United Fruit Company collaboration reached its peak in the second decade of the 20th century. (Source: http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/united-fruit.html Also see: http://www.mayaparadise.com/ufc1e.htm http://www.lossless-audio.com/usa/index8.php (Guatemalan section) http://www.geocities.com/~virtualtruth/chiquita.htm

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An Analysis of 'La United Fruit Company' de Pablo Neruda by Jason Hawkins

La United Fruit Company by Pablo Neruda, laments the exploitation of the Latin American countries by North American companies. Neruda begins the poem with a biblical tone, lending the poem an epic or mythical feeling. This religious language, juxtaposed against the names of icons of consumerism like Coca Cola, Ford Motors and The United Fruit Company reveals a sarcastic disdain towards the arrogance of the North. At the same time, Neruda weaves in the quasi-religious language of Democracy employed by the companies in popular culture to cover up their immoral behavior. The exploited Latin American countries are baptized in the propaganda of the North as Banana Republics, a euphemistic phrase, derogatory in the sense that it belittles the idea of democracy in Latin America as limited and primitive, almost cute, and conveys the not so subtle message that by selling off their natural resources, the Banana Republics could be elevated from their primitive conditions towards a more modernized and democratic level of existence. Neruda uses the image and language of fruit as an extended metaphor for the Latin American countries, using adjectives like juicy and sweet. By describing the coastline of his country as the hips of a woman, Neruda likens the plundering of Latin America to the act of rape. For Neruda, the Latin American countries are like a fresh, virginal fruit, consumed by the north then carelessly cast aside to rot. By invoking the memory of dead ancestors, over whose graves the North American companies erect their operations, Neruda both comments on the irreverent attitude of the northern companies towards the cultures and histories of the exploited lands, but also points to the history of imperial conquest that has manifested Latin American history from the time of the great indigenous empires like the Incas and Mayas, to the conquistadors of Spain. The cavalier attitudes of companies like the United Fruit Company and Coca Cola are only the most recent iterations of the pattern of conquest and domination that has plagued Latin America since its earliest history: Here, the biblical reference to the crowns of Cesar (translated in the English version as imperial crowns) represents the United States. The comic opera refers to the puppet governments set up by the CIA in Latin America to safeguard the interests of North American companies at the expense of the Latin American people. Neruda describes the orgy of blood and greed that ensued, portraying the bloody Latin American dictatorships supported by the United States as carnivorous flies, parasites that live off the suffering, rotting fruit of Latin America. The repetition of the word mosca (fly), combined with the alliteration of zumban (buzzing noise of an insect) and tumbas (tombs) creates a musical tone that amplifies the extended metaphor of Latin America as a fruit being consumed by parasites. Now, however, the fruit is rotting and putrid. Toward the end of his poem, Nerudas sarcasm changes to lamentation as we witness the pillage of his country: The ripe, juicy. virginal fruit we saw at the beginning of the poem has turned into a bunch of rotten fruit cast aside to the waste pile. The Latin American people have been used and discarded mechanically in the same manner as expendable produce, their dead bodies buried in obscurity or dumped into the water.

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Nerudas poem, La United Fruit Company is a protest, not just against the greed and corruption of North American companies in Latin America, but also against the consumeristic propaganda used by companies like the United Fruit Company and Coca-Cola in the United States to portray their activities in the South as benign.

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Un Anlisis de 'La United Fruit Company' de Pablo Neruda por Jason Hawkins
Parte de la crnica potica titulada Canto General, "La United Fruit Company" de Pablo Neruda lamenta la explotacin de los pases latinoamericanos por las compaas norteamericanas. Neruda comienza el poema con un tono bblico que presta al poema un sentimiento de una fbula o una epopeya. El lenguaje religioso yuxtapuesto contra las muletillas de consumismo estadounidense como 'Coca Cola' y 'Ford Motors' revela, con mucho sarcasmo, el desdn que tiene el escritor hacia la actitud orgullosa de los norteamericanos. Adems, este estilo religioso hace referencia al lenguaje cuasireligioso de la Democracia y la cultura popular del norte usado por las compaas del norte para enmascarar sus acciones. Usando la sinestesia para describir las tierras latinoamericanas, Neruda emplea los adjetivos 'jugoso' y 'dulce' para crear una imagen de su tierra como una fruta rica y virginal. La metonimia de 'la dulce cintura de Amrica' que refiere a Centroamrica produce una imagen de la cintura de una mujer. Entonces, ms tarde en el poema, cuando los pases son invadidos de una manera glotona y destructiva por los norteamericanos, el efecto es ms triste y personal, como la violacin de una chica o el robo de una objeta preciosa. La profanacin de las tierras sagradas de su gente representa an otra repeticin del ciclo de conquista y reconquista en Latinoamrica. Est sobre las tumbas de conquistadores anteriores que las compaas levantan sus operaciones. Aqu, Csar representa el gobierno y la gente de los Estados Unidos- otra referencia bblica y una referencia al obvio imperialismo de los norteamericanos. La 'pera bufa' se refiere a los gobiernos tteres organizados por la CIA en colaboracin con las compaas, en pases como Guatemala. Neruda continua, describiendo los efectos del imperialismo como una orga de sangre y codicia que revel las peores calidades de varios dictadores, ellos mismos latinoamericanos. Horripilante, sino casi cmico, la repeticin de la palabra 'mosca' crea el efecto de un ritmo musical, casi como un canto religioso, que orquestra y enumera los insectos enjambrando, ayudando pintar una cuadra satrica de 'moscas borrachas que zumban/ sobre las tumbas populares,/ moscas de circo...'. La eleccin de usar la mosca para representar los dictadores continua la metfora de su tierra como una fruta, sino ahora la fruta est pudriendo y atrayendo los insectos. Neruda termina el poema con una imagen de fruta, pero es diferente que al inicio del poema. Esta imagen no es de una fruta jugosa sino "un racimo de fruta muerta,/ derramada en el pudridero", marcando la prdida de las tierras. Marca tambin el desarrollo completo de su analoga de fruta y, adems, el ciclo completo de conquista y reconquista en Amrica Latina- 'un cuerpo rueda'.

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We Are Many
Of the many men whom I am, whom we are, I cannot settle on a single one. They are lost to me under the cover of clothing, they have departed for another city. When everything seems to be set to show me off as a man of intelligence, the fool I keep concealed on my person takes over my talk and occupies my mouth. On other occasions, I am dozing in the midst of people of some distinction, and when I summon my courageous self, a coward completely unknown to me swaddles my poor skeleton in a thousand tiny reservations. When a stately home bursts into flames, instead of the fireman I summon, an arsonist bursts on the scene, and he is I. There is nothing I can do. What must I do to distinguish myself? How can I put myself together? All the books I read lionize dazzling hero figures, brimming with self-assurance. I die with envy of them; and, in films where bullets fly on the wind, I am left in envy of the cowboys, left admiring even the horses. But when I call upon my dashing being, out comes the same old lazy self, and so I never know just who I am, nor how many I am, nor who we will be being. I would like to be able to touch a bell and call up my real self, the truly me, because if I really need my proper self, I must not allow myself to disappear. While I am writing, I am far away; and when I come back, I have already left. I should like to see if the same thing happens to other people as it does to me, to see if as many people are as I am, and if they seem the same way to themselves. When this problem has been thoroughly explored, I am going to school myself so well in things that, when I try to explain my problems, I shall speak, not of self, but of geography.

Muchos Somos
De tantos hombres que soy, que somos, no puedo encontrar a ninguno: se me pierden bajo la ropa, se fueron a otra ciudad. Cuando todo est preparado para mostrarme inteligente el tonto que llevo escondido se toma la palabra en mi boca. Otras veces me duermo en medio de la sociedad distinguida y cuando busco en m al valiente, un cobarde que no conozco corre a tomar con mi esqueleto mil deliciosas precauciones. Cuando arde una casa estimada en vez del bombero que llamo se precipita el incendiario y se soy yo. No tengo arreglo. Qu debo hacer para escogerme? Cmo puedo rehabilitarme? Todos los libros que leo celebran hroes refulgentes siempre seguros de s mismos: me muero de envidia por ellos, en los filmes de vientos y balas me quedo envidiando al jinete, me quedo admirando al caballo. Pero cuando pido al intrpido me sale el viejo perezoso, y as yo no s quin soy, no s cuntos soy o seremos. Me gustara tocar un timbre y sacar el m verdadero porque si yo me necesito no debo desaparecerme. Mientras escribo estoy ausente y cuando vuelvo ya he partido: voy a ver si a las otras gentes les pasa lo que a m me pasa, si son tantos como soy yo, si se parecen a s mismos y cuando lo haya averiguado voy a aprender tan bien las cosas que para explicar mis problemas les hablar de geografa.

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When?
Oh, Chile, long petal of sea and wine and snow, oh when oh when and when oh when will I be home again? The sash of your black-white foam will encircle my waist and my poetry will flood your land. My people, truly, in the springtime does my name echo in your ears, do you recognize in me a river flowing past your door? I am a river. If you strain to hear beneath the mines of Antofagasta, to the south of Osorno or the cordillera in the Melipilla, in Temuco, in a night of dewy stars and rustling laurel, if you place your ear to the ground you will hear me flowing submerged and singing. October, oh springtime, let me be again among my people! Oh patria, patria, oh native land, when and when and when, when will I be home again? When, oh native land, new-clad, when, oh springtime, oh when and when will I waken in your arms, sea-sprayed and wet with dew? When, oh native land, will I go from door to door during the elections collecting the fearful liberty so that it may shout in the middle of the street. When, oh native land, will you marry me with your seagreen eyes and your dress of snow and we will have millions of new children that will return the land to the poor. Ay, my native land, without rags, ay, my springtime,

Cuando

de Chile

Oh Chile, largo ptalo de mar y vino y nieve, ay cundo ay cundo y cundo ay cundo me encontrar contigo, enrollars tu cinta de espuma blanca y negra en mi cintura, desencadenar mi poesa sobre tu territorio. Pueblo mo, verdad que en primavera suena mi nombre en tus odos y t me reconoces como si fuera un ro que pasa por tu puerta? Soy un ro. Si escuchas pausadamente bajo los salares de Antofagasta, o bien al sur, de Osorno o hacia la cordillera, en Melipilla, o en Temuco, en la noche de astros mojados y laurel sonoro, pones sobre la tierra tus odos, escuchars que corro sumergido, cantando. Octubre, oh primavera, devulveme a mi pueblo. Ay Patria, Patria, ay Patria, cundo ay cundo y cundo cundo me encontrar contigo? Ay cundo encontrar tu primavera dura, y entre todos tus hijos andar por tus campos y tus calles con mis zapatos viejos. Ay cundo, Patria, en las elecciones ir de casa en casa recogiendo la libertad temerosa para que grite en medio de la calle. Ay cundo, Patria, te casars conmigo con ojos verdemar y vestido de nieve y tendremos millones de hijos nuevos que entregarn la tierra a los hambrientos. Ay Patria, sin harapos, ay primavera ma,

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when? ay, when and when will I awaken in your arms soaked with sea and dew? Ay, when I stand close to you, I will take you by the waist, and no one will harm you, I will defend you, singing, when I walk with you, when you walk with me, when ay, when.

y cundo ay cundo y cundo despertar en tus brazos empapado de mar y de roco. Ay cuando yo est cerca de ti, te tomar de la cintura, nadie podr tocarte, yo podr defenderte cantando, cuando vaya contigo, cuando vayas conmigo, cundo ay cundo.

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Poetry for use with African American students

We have been very surprised to find that in Dallas, Pablo Nerudas name and vision are much more familiar to African American literary circles than they are within mainstream literary groups, while Latino immigrants frequently know his love postry, and university professors of Latino studies educators have little knowledge of his work or impact. The following lines, we have found, may be of special interest to African American students.
* Where the blacks are beaten, I cannot be dead. When my brothers are thrown in jail, I will be with them. * Where one man has no voice, my voice. * The people, united, can never be defeated! * There is no such thing as solitary hope or lone struggle. * I can accept no other road for a writer in our vast and harsh landscape if we want the darkness to flower, if we are to hope that millions who still have not learned to read us or even to read, who still cannot write or write to us, will live in a climate of dignity without which it is impossible to be a whole man. * Negros del continente, al Nuevo Mundo habeis dado la sal que le faltaba: sin negros no respiran los tambores y sin negros no suenan las guitarras". * Blacks of the continent, to the New World you have given the salt it lacked: without blacks the drums do not breathe and without blacks the guitars do not sing. * Only with fiery patience will we conquer the splendid city that will shed light, justice, and dignity on all men. Thus, poetry shall not have sung in vain. * I dont want to shake the hand soaked in our blood. I ask for punishment. I dont want the ambassadors to live in their tranquil houses. I want to see the indicted and tried in this plaza, right here. I want punishment. * It is the voices of the people who bestow on me the strength and innocence that must animate all poetry. It is through them that I touch its nobility, its surface of leather, of green leaves, of joy. It is they, the peoples poets, who show me the light. * We believe in peace, and we will knock at every door to achieve its sovereignty. We thirst for peace among men as pilgrims thirst for water to sustain their strength along the way. * I do not want my country divided. We can all fit in this land of mine. * I understood that my human mission was none other than to add my talents to the swelling force of unified peoples, to join them in blood and spirit, with passion and hope, because only from that swelling torrent can be born the progress necessary for writers and for peoples.

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Poems for Use in Primary School

To a foot from its child (excerpt)
translated by Alastair Reid The childs foot is not yet aware its a foot, and would like to be a butterfly or an apple. But in time, stones and bits of glass, streets, ladders, and the paths in the rough earth go on teaching the foot that it cannot fly. Then, the childs foot is defeated, falls in the battle, is a prisoner condemned to live in a shoe. Bit by bit, in that dark, it gorws to know the world. These soft nails of quartz, bunched together, grow hard and change themselves into opaque substance, hard as horn, and the tiny, petaled toes of the child grow bunched and out of trim, take on the form of eyeless reptiles with triangular heads, like worms. This blind thing walks without respite, never stopping for hour after hour, the one foot, the other. Through fields, mines, backwards, forward, it walks, it grows calloused. . El pie del nio an no sabe que es pie, y quiere ser mariposa o manzana. Pero luego los vidrios y las piedras, las calles, las escaleras, y los caminos de la tierra dura van enseando al pie que no puede volar, que no puede ser fruto redondo en una rama. El pie del nio entonces fue derrotado, cay en la batalla, fue prisionero, condenado a vivir en un zapato. Poco a poco sin luz fue conociendo el mundo a su manera. Aquellas suaves uas de cuarzo, de racimo, se endurecieron, se mudaron en opaca substancia, en cuerno duro, y los pequeos ptalos del nio se aplastaron, se desequilibraron, tomaron formas de reptil sin ojos, cabezas triangulares de gusano. Pero este ciego anduvo sin tregua, sin parar hora tras hora, el pie y el otro pie, por los campos, las minas, los almacenes y los ministerios, atrs, afuera, adentro, adelante.

Al pie desde su nio

Here
I came here to count the bells that live in the sea, that ring in the sea, inside the sea. That is why I live here.

Aqu
Me vine aqu a contar las campanas que viven en el mar, que suenan en el mar, dentro del mar. Por eso vivo aqu.

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I dont want my country to be divided

I dont want my country divided nor bleeding from seven knife wounds. I want the light to be hoisted over new homes. We all can fit in this land of mine. And those that dont feel that they fit here can just take their songs and go far away: the rich ones always acted differently from us, so let them go live with their relatives in Miami. I dont want my country divided. Let them take their songs and go far away. I dont want my country divided. There is enough space here for all of us. And I will remain to sing with the workers songs of our history and our land.

Yo no quiero la Patria dividida

Yo no quiero la Patria dividida ni por siete cuchillos desangrada, quiero la luz de Chile enarbolada sobre la nueva casa construida, cabemos todos en la tierra mia. y que los que se creen prisioneros se vayan lejos con su melodia. Siempre los ricos fueron extranjeros que se vayan a Miami con sus tias, Yo no quiero la Patria dividida se vayan lejos con su melodia. Yo no quiero la Patria dividida. There is enough space here for all of us. yo me quedo a cantar con los obreros en esta nueva historia y geografia.

Sad Song to Bore Everyone

translated by Ilan Stavans I wasted my life all night doing some counting not cows, not pesos, not francs, not dollars, no, nothing like that. I wasted my life all night doing some counting, not cars, not cats, not loves, no.

Triste cancin para aburrir a cualquiera

Toda la noche me pas la vida sacando cuentas, pero no de vacas, pero no de libras, pero no de francos, pero no de dlares, no, nada de eso. Toda la vida me pas la noche sacando cuentas, pero no de coches, pero no de gatos, pero no de amores, no.

Bestiary
translated by Elsa Neuberger If I could speak with birds, with oysters and with little lizards, with the foxes of the Dark Forest, with the exemplary penguins; if the sheep, the fluffy and lazy dogs, and the horses that pull carts could understand me, if I could discuss things with cats, if hens would listen to me! In this world which runs and is silent, I want more communications, other languages, other signs, I want to know this world.

Bestiario
Si yo pudiera hablar con pjaros, con ostras y con lagartijas, con los zorros de Selva Oscura, con los ejemplares pinginos, si me entendieran las ovejas, los lnguidos perros lanudos, los caballos de carretela, si discutiera con los gatos, si me escucharan las gallinas! En este mundo que corre y calla quiero ms comunicaciones, otros lenguajes, otros signos, quiero conocer este mundo.

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Ocean
translated by Steven Mitchell Body purer than a wave, salt that washes the line, and the luminous bird flying without roots.

Ocano

Cuerpo ms puro que una ola, Sal que lava la lnea, Y el ave lcida Volando sin races.

Fragments from several of Nerudas Odes

Ode to the Rooster
I saw a rooster with Spanish plumage: from black and red cloth they had designed his shirt, his short trousers and the arched feathers of his tail. His feet, sheathed in yellos boots, revealed the glitter of his defiant spurs, and on top the lordly head, crowned with blood, maintained that demeanor: a statue of pride.

Oda al gallo
Vi un gallo de plumaje castellano: de tela negra y blanca cortaron su camisa, sus pantalones cortos y las plumas arqueadas de su cola. Sus patas enfundadas en botas amarillas dejaban brillar los espolones desafiantes y arriba la soberia cabeza coronada de sangre mantenia toda aquella apostura: la estatua del orgulo.

Ode to the Yellow Bird

translated by Steven Mitchell I buried you in the garden: a grave tiny as an open hand, southern earth, cold earth fell covering your plumage, the yellos rays the black lightnings of your snuffed-out body.

Oda al pjaro sofr

Te enterr en el jardn: una fosa miniscule como una mano abierta, tierra austral, tierra fra fue cubriendo tu plumake, los rayos amarillos, los relmpagos negros de tu cuerpo apagado.

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Ode to the Black Panther

translated by Steven Mitchell She walked like fire, and, like smoke, when she closed her eyes she became the invisible, unemcompassable night.

Oda a la Pantera Negra

Anduvo como el fuego, y, como el humo, cuando cerr los ojos se hizo invisible, inabarcable noche.

Ode to the apple

translated by Ken Krabbenhofy You, apple are the object of my praise. I want to fill my mouth with your name. I want to eat you whole. You are always fresh, like nothing and nobody. You have always just fallen from Paradise: dawns rosy cheek full and perfect.

Oda a la manzana
A ti, manzana, quiero celebrarte llenndome con tu nombre la boca, comindote. Siempre eres nueva como nada o nadie, siempre recin cada del Paraso: plena y pura mejilla arrebolada de la aurora!

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