[Music intro]

LYNNE THOMPSON: Hello! My name is Lynne Thompson, Poet Laureate for the City of Los Angeles, and I’m so happy to welcome listeners to this installment of Poems on Air, a podcast supported by the Los Angeles Public Library. Every week, I’ll present the work of poets I admire, poets who you should know, and poets who have made a substantial and inimitable contribution to the art and craft of poetry.

LYNNE THOMPSON: As Poems on Air continues its celebration of poetry forefathers-and-mothers, attention must be paid to Pablo Neruda. A Nobel Prize winner, the Chilean poet’s influence on the poets of subsequent generations is inestimable. Neruda’s range—from soul-stirring love poems to pointed political polemics which ultimately cost him a consular post—has served as a template and inspiration for writers and readers alike. In Latin American Poetry: Origins and Presence, Gordon Brotherton argues, "in his best poetry (of which there is much) he speaks on a scale and with an agility unrivaled in Latin America." I’d argue that it is unrivaled across the globe.

LYNNE THOMPSON: Today’s poem is "One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII" by Pablo Neruda.

"One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII"

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as one loves certain obscure things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries
the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,
and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose
from the earth lives dimly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you directly without problems or pride:
I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,
except in this form in which I am not nor are you,
so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,
so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

LYNNE THOMPSON: The Los Angeles Poet Laureate was created as a joint program between the City’s Department of Cultural Affairs and the Los Angeles Public Library and this podcast is available wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening!

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• Back to Poems on Air: Episode 89



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