PRATELEIRA EUNICE LIVRO 102
Este livro traz os principais poemas de amor de Pablo Neruda, poeta Nobel de literatura de 1971. O amor é o tema central de sua obra e 'Cem sonetos de amor' foi dedicado a Matilde Urrutia, sua última musa, e é dividido em quatro partes - manhã, meio-dia, tarde e noite.
Pablo Neruda (Ricardo Eliecer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto) nasceu em 12 de julho de 1904, em Parral, no Chile. Mais tarde, em 1917, publicou seu primeiro texto, o artigo “Entusiasmo e perseverança”, no jornal La Mañana. A partir de então, passou a publicar poesias em periódicos.

O autor, que morreu em 23 de setembro de 1973, em Santiago do Chile, foi senador e diplomata, O escritor foi eleito senador no Chile em 1945. Nesse mesmo ano, ganhou o Prêmio Nacional de Literatura, ingressou no Partido Comunista e viajou ao Brasil. Em São Paulo, esteve presente em uma homenagem a Luís Carlos Prestes (1898-1990), e, no Rio de Janeiro, foi recebido na Academia Brasileira de Letras. mas é mundialmente conhecido por suas poesias de temática amorosa, além de seus poemas de cunho político. Assim, seus dois livros mais famosos são Vinte poemas de amor e uma canção desesperada e Canto geral.

I am truly, deeply in love with this selection of poems. Anyone who is a fan of all of the shades and colors of love and poetry, itself, should consider picking up a copy. ( )

Poetry tends to be very hit or miss for me, but the ones that hit, hit hard. I liked all the poems in this collection, they are gorgeous and have such lush, sensual imagery. There were a few poems that really stood out to me, and I adored and keep going back too to read again. However, the rest of the poems were not as memorable and blurred together for me. Overall, I would highly recommend this. ( )

As my fourth Neruda poetry collection, 100 Love Sonnets is undoubtedly lacking compared to Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, The Captain’s Verses, and Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon. Akin to intimacy and body landscapes among Gerard Schlosser’s paintings, Neruda paints love in a spectrum of emotions and shades; from devotion to inquisition to desolation, from red to mauve to blue. However the words that convey them can be sparse. With such limitation it is no wonder the sonnets can be wearisome and repetitive. But each time a sonnet successfully touches on a certain feeling or a certain memory, with words that seem to fit the only way Neruda limns them, it rollicks through romance and love-making in utmost splendour without forgetting its moments of neediness for reassurance and affirmation. Neruda wholeheartedly worships and adores his third wife, Matilde, in this collection. And for an affair to give birth to a hundred of sonnets is almost enough for love to infect your whole being; consumingly and blindly. Whilst this collection is divided by different times of the day (Morning, Afternoon, Evening, and Night), I can nearly describe the reading experience as sweet dew that slowly streams down among the blades of grass in the earliest of mornings as the sun takes it time to rise. Sometimes, it feels like it is all happening in a dream. But you don't always want to stay in one.

Overall, I bookmarked 15 sonnets in this collection. And as a passionate lover of bread, I was very amused by a particular sonnet that declares a beloved as made of bread. I don't think anything can be as sensual as this:

SONNET XIII
The light that rises from your feet to your hair,
the strength enfolding your delicate form,
are not mother of pearl, not chilly silver:
you are made of bread, a bread the fire adores.

The grain grew high in its harvest of you,
in good time the flour swelled;
as the dough rose, doubling your breasts,
my love was the coal waiting ready in the earth.

Oh, bread your forehead, your legs, your mouth,
bread I devour, born with the morning light,
my love, beacon-flag of the bakeries:

fire taught you a lesson of the blood;
you learned your holiness from flour,
from bread your language and aroma.

*

Two sonnets I dearly loved:

SONNET LXVI
I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.

I love you only because it's you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my key to true calm.

In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.

SONNET LXV
Matilde, where are you? Down here I noticed,
under my necktie and just above my heart,
a certain pang of grief between the ribs,
you were gone that quickly.

I needed the light of your energy,
I looked around, devouring hope.
I watched the void without you that is like a house,
nothing left but tragic windows.

Out of sheer taciturnity the ceiling listens
to the fall of the ancient leafless rain,
to feathers, to whatever the night imprisoned;
so I wait for you like a lonely house
till you will see me again and live in me.
Till then my windows ache.

*

Others sonnets worth mentioning:
Sonnet VIII
Sonnet XVI
Sonnet XVII
Sonnet XLIX
Sonnet LXXXI
Sonnet LXXXIX ( )

As always with this poet, this is an exceptional selection of Pablo Neruda's poetry. It is also perhaps his most accessible collection I have yet read, and I unapologetically admit I prefer his love poems to his odes or his political pieces. The new 2014 bilingual edition by the University of Texas Press is also excellent; it is very well-presented to match the quality of the poems. All in all, a glorious treat.

Favourites include: sonnets 1, 8, 13, 16, 23, 33, 45, 70, 73, 94 and 98. ( )