MATSUO+BASHO~PABLO+NERUDA

Basho,Neruda

http://www.egs.edu/library/matsuo-basho/biography/

__Biography of Basho__ He was born in the year 1644 as a japanese poet he was born in Igo Province near Ueno He was a young writer for all of the works that he did he became famous quickly in the region of Edo period Japan he was not a fan of the particular life style that he lived in he was a person that was out in the wilderness and that how he was inspired for his works he usually didn't make his works about the popular literary works Basho always was continuing to add and publish his works through the toughest of times that he went thorugh he started to work with students and teach them about the The Best Poems of Tosei's Twenty Disciples

__Reputation__ he was favored by his students that he was taught and they followed in his footsteps the students of the time built a house for him and they planted a banana tree for him as well his name later became adopted as a result from this banana tree Critical interpretation of Bashō's poems continued into the 20th century with notable works by Yamamoto Kenkichi, Imoto Nōichi, and Ogata Tsutomu. also saw translations of Bashō's poems into languages and editions His position in Western eyes as the haiku poet par excellence gave him great influence, and by virtue of Western preference for haiku over more traditional forms like the tanka or renga, The impressionistic and concise nature of his verse influenced particularly [|Ezra Pound] and the [|Imagists], 

List of many of Basho's Haiku poems http://thegreenleaf.co.uk/hp/basho/00bashohaiku.htm Explanation of Haiku poems http://oaks.nvg.org/basho.html Basho's style of writing was simple but contained complex meanings. When the Haiku poems are translated into English they become simpler and loose some of their meaning. Certain Haikus do not have a direct translation into English so they have been worded many different ways. The meaning of these poems come from the readers personal experiences so it can mean different things for different people. Because Basho shared his name with the basho banana tree, this tree appears in many of his poems. basho's work was heavily influenced by the teachings of zen Buddhism. Basho said that 'a good poem is one in which the form of the verse and the joining of its parts seem light as a shallow river flowing over its sandy bed.' He was also influenced by the zen doctrines on non attachment and oneness with nature.

Frog Haiku A lonely pond in age-old stillness sleeps. . . Apart, unstirred by sound or motion. . . till Suddenly into it a lithe frog leaps. Translations of Basho's Frog Haiku www.bopsecrets.org/gateway/passages/basho-frog.htm

Basho's last haiku falling sick on a journey / my dream goes wandering / over a field of dried grass

Neruda He lived in the time of the Spanish Civil War, and the rise of Communism. He especially admired Joseph Stalin and Fidel Castro. Most of his poetry is about love, and there is not very much structure or form to his poetry. Neruda became politically involved in his later life and was named Chile's consul to Mexico This fact could quite possibly be attributed to his controversial political poems, which praised the likes of Josef Stalin and Fidel Castro One of his greatest influences was Gabriella Mistral. He writes in a variety of styles including surrealism, historical epics, and political commentaries. Chilean poet Pablo Neruda's unique style was recognized in 1971 when he won the Nobel prize for Literature. His poems are often passionate odes to love and nature, and he was once noted by the New York Times as "the most influential, and inventive poet of the Spanish language." Back to Poetry Index


 * [[image:http://www.homestead.com/%7Esite/Scripts_Shapes/shapes.dll?CMD=GetRectangleGif&r=255&g=193&b=152 width="288" height="2"]] || [[image:http://www.homestead.com/%7Esite/Scripts_Shapes/shapes.dll?CMD=GetCornerGif&w=2&h=2&r2=255&g2=193&b2=152&r=149&g=59&b=0 width="2" height="2"]] ||
 * [[image:http://www.homestead.com/%7Esite/Scripts_Shapes/shapes.dll?CMD=GetRectangleGif&r=255&g=193&b=152 width="2" height="2"]] || [[image:http://www.homestead.com/%7Esite/Scripts_Shapes/shapes.dll?CMD=GetRectangleGif&r=255&g=102&b=0 width="286" height="2"]] ||

Sonnet 89 - Pablo Neruda
When I die, I want your hands on my eyes: I want the light and wheat of your beloved hands to pass their freshness over me once more: I want to feel the softness that changed my destiny.

I want you to live while I wait for you, asleep. I want your ears still to hear the wind, I want you to sniff the sea's aroma that we loved together, to continue to walk on the sand we walk on.

I want what I love to continue to live, and you whom I love and sang above everything else to continue to flourish, full-flowered:

so that you can reach everything my love directs you to. so that my shadow can travel along in your hair, so that everything can learn the reason for my song.- I got this from http://wordsfromotherpeople.blogspot.com/2009/01/when-i-die-i-want-your-hands-on-my-eyes.html


 * Annotations: This poem is really simple, so the meaning and essence of it is easily discovered. But there is something about it, something special, it is almost like the author's soul is speaking through this poem. And it is a sonnet, so it has a typical sonnet form in Neruda's native language, Spanish.**

A Song Of Despair
The memory of you emerges from the night around me.

The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea.

Deserted like the wharves at dawn.

It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one!

Cold flower heads are raining over my heart.

Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked.

In you the wars and the flights accumulated.

From you the wings of the song birds rose.

You swallowed everything, like distance.

Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank!

It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss.

The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse.

Pilot's dread, fury of blind driver,

turbulent drunkenness of love, in you everything sank!

In the childhood of mist my soul, winged and wounded.

Lost discoverer, in you everything sank!

You girdled sorrow, you clung to desire,

sadness stunned you, in you everything sank!

I made the wall of shadow draw back,

beyond desire and act, I walked on.

Oh flesh, my own flesh, woman whom I loved and lost,

I summon you in the moist hour, I raise my song to you.

Like a jar you housed infinite tenderness.

and the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar.

There was the black solitude of the islands,

and there, woman of love, your arms took me in.

There was thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit.

There were grief and ruins, and you were the miracle.

Ah woman, I do not know how you could contain me

in the earth of your soul, in the cross of your arms!

How terrible and brief my desire was to you!

How difficult and drunken, how tensed and avid.

Cemetery of kisses, there is still fire in your tombs,

still the fruited boughs burn, pecked at by birds.

Oh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs,

oh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies.

Oh the mad coupling of hope and force

in which we merged and despaired.

And the tenderness, light as water and as flour.

And the word scarcely begun on the lips.

This was my destiny and in it was my voyage of my longing,

and in it my longing fell, in you everything sank!

Oh pit of debris, everything fell into you,

what sorrow did you not express, in what sorrow are you not drowned!

From billow to billow you still called and sang.

Standing like a sailor in the prow of a vessel.

You still flowered in songs, you still brike the currents.

Oh pit of debris, open and bitter well.

Pale blind diver, luckless slinger,

lost discoverer, in you everything sank!

It is the hour of departure, the hard cold hour

which the night fastens to all the timetables.

The rustling belt of the sea girdles the shore.

Cold stars heave up, black birds migrate.

Deserted like the wharves at dawn.

Only tremulous shadow twists in my hands.

Oh farther than everything. Oh farther than everything.

It is the hour of departure. Oh abandoned one! Pablo Neruda http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-song-of-despair/

The Dictators
An odor has remained among the sugarcane:

a mixture of blood and body, a penetrating

petal that brings nausea.

Between the coconut palms the graves are full

of ruined bones, of speechless death-rattles.

The delicate dictator is talking

with top hats, gold braid, and collars.

The tiny palace gleams like a watch

and the rapid laughs with gloves on

cross the corridors at times

and join the dead voices

and the blue mouths freshly buried.

The weeping cannot be seen, like a plant

whose seeds fall endlessly on the earth,

whose large blind leaves grow even without light.

Hatred has grown scale on scale,

blow on blow, in the ghastly water of the swamp,

with a snout full of ooze and silence- This is one of Neruda's political commentaries. He uses vivid imagery to portray this scene. There is no structure to it like most of his poems. http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-dictators/

Pablo Neruda was born Ricardo Eliecer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto in the Chilean town of Parral in 1904. His father worked for the railroad, and his mother was a teacher (she died shortly after his birth). At age 13, he began his literary career as a contributor to the daily //La Mañana//, where he published his first articles and poems. In 1920, he contributed to the literary journal //Selva Austral// under the pen name Pablo Neruda, which he assumed in honor of Czech poet Jan Neruda.

Some of his early poems are found in his first book, //Crepusculario (Book of Twilight)//, published in 1923, and one of his most renowned works, //Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair)//, was published the following year. //Twenty Love Poems// made Neruda a celebrity, and he thereafter devoted himself to his poetry.

In 1927, Neruda began his long diplomatic career (in the Latin American tradition of honoring poets with diplomatic posts), and he moved frequently around the world. In 1935, the Spanish Civil War began, and Neruda chronicled the atrocities, including the execution of his friend [|Federico García Lorca], in his //España en el corazón (Spain in Our Hearts)//. Over the next 10 years, Neruda would leave and return to Chile several times. Along the way, he was named Chile’s consul to Mexico and won election to the Chilean Senate. He would also begin to attract controversy, first with his praise of [|Joseph Stalin] (in poems such as "Canto a Stalingrado" and "Nuevo canto de amor a Stalingrado”) and later for his poetry honoring [|Fulgencio Batista] ("Saludo a Batista") and [|Fidel Castro]. Always left-leaning, Neruda joined the Communist Party of Chile in 1945, but by 1948 the Communist Party was under siege, and Neruda fled the country with his family. In 1952, the Chilean government withdrew its order to seize leftist writers and political figures, and Neruda returned to Chile once again.

For the next 21 years, Pablo Neruda continued to write prodigiously (the collection of his complete works, which is continually being republished, filled 459 pages in 1951; by 1968 it amounted to 3,237 pages, in two volumes), rising in the ranks of 20th-century poets. He also received numerous prestigious awards, including the International Peace Prize in 1950, the Lenin Peace Prize and the Stalin Peace Prize in 1953, and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. http://www.biography.com/people/pablo-neruda-9421737