Welcome to 100 Love Sonnets International Book Ring

This ring started May 2005 and finished in May 2008.

Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) was the nom de plume of Chilean poet, diplomat and Communist party politician Ricardo Basualto - generally considered one of the most important Latin American poets of the 20th century. This book contains one hundred poems celebrating his love for his wife Matilde. Here is Sonnet 11.

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
Like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

Member/Location

Kangaroo, Barnet, London
Winterson, Brighton
Spike1972, Cardiff
Beebarf, Sheffield
Emilythegoat,Oxford

Arrived safely this morning. Thank you Chris! My dad was very interested in it because it's a bilingual edition, and he's studying Spanish, immediately asking if it was mine to keep.... (Don't worry, I distracted him with my copy of Residence on Earth!)

Sonnet 57 caught my eye:

They're liars, those who say I lost the moon,
who foretold a future like a public desert for me,
who gossiped so much with their cold tongues:
they tried to ban the flower of the universe.

"The quick spontaneous mermaids' amber
is finished. Now he has only the people."
And they gnawed on their incessant papers,
they plotted an oblivion for my guitar.

But I tossed - ha! into their eyes! - the dazzling lances
of our love, piercing your heart and mine.
I gathered the jasmine your footsteps left behind.

I got lost in the night, without the light
of your eyelids, and when the night surrounded me
I was born again: I was the owner of my own darkness.

Hmm, I was so relunctant to part with this I think I might have to buy my own copy at some point. I'm sorry I've had this for so long, life got on top of me a bit.

Can't resist another of my favourites:

Sonnet LVIII

Among the broadswords of literary iron
I wander like a foreign sailor, who does not know
the streets, or their angles, and who sings because
that's how it is, because if not for that what else is there?

From the stormy archipelagoes I brought
my windy accordion, waves of crazy rain,
the habitual slowness of natural things:
they made up my wild heart.

And so when the sharp little teeth of Literature
snapped at my honest heels, I passed along
unsuspectingly, singing with the wind,

toward the rainy dockyards of my childhood,
toward the cool forests of the indefinable South,
toward where my heart was filled with your fragrance.

Received safe and sound. I might as well just order my own copy now. Just flicking through it has made me want to devour it and keep it within grabbing distance forever.
Cheers for introducing me to this wonderful work.

UPDATE - 27TH JAN 2009. Yes, 2009!!!
I loved this book! Will have to buy myself a copy because it is just too beautiful. Even the introduction is gorgeous.
Real life well and truly got in the way of bookcrossing and this poor book suffered a long and dull time caught up in many house moves. It has finally been unearthed and set off on its journey once more. Many, many apologies for being such a selfish book-hog.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

On it's way to Spike to continue this long overdue ring. There are no excuses that would cover the amount of time this poor book has been stuck in boxes with me. I apologise and am making amends RABCK style!

Landed safely in rainy Cardiff today.

For various reasons, I'm going to be passing this on un-finished, although I did get over half-way with it.

I did enjoy most of it, and enjoyed a lot of the imagery, but admittedly I couldn't quite get my head around the author comparing his loved one to a piece of land, or a plant, or tree, no matter how much he loved it. I guess if you had the same feelings about such things - as I assume she did - then I guess it might work for you.

I also think this is a book for dipping in and out of, rather than reading start-to-finish. I did try this but, me being me, once I'd picked up another book I haven't - and probably won't - go back to it again which would result in me keeping it a lot longer than is suitable.

Edit 13/2/09 - Beebarf's asked to be skipped, so I've PM'd emilythegoat for her address.

Posted to Emilythegoat today.

Arrived this morning - thanks Spike :)

A lot has happened in my life since I signed up for this bookring - in this relatively short time I have met and married my husband and had 2 children! I think I would have appreciated this book more in my pre-children days when I had a bit more time and space to digest literature. As it is I haven't really enjoyed trying to read these poems. Maybe I will have another go in ten years' time!

PMed PinkManager for her/his address

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

No reply from PinkManager so have posted this book back to UrbanSpaceman.

Today Pablo arrived back from his travels.

Thank you all for giving him shelter along the way.