Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Pablo Neruda

The collection that made Neruda famous at a young age. A short book comprised of short poems on love in its many forms. Sexual love, emotional love, love love love love love.

A young man’s book.*Beautiful in parts but too sentimental for this middle aged Yankee. Picked it up to get a bit more of an understanding of the world the influenced Bolano (especially as Neruda is heavily discussed in By Night In Chile) left feeling that Bolano remains more my speed. Perhaps it isn’t fair to judge one of the great poets of the 20^th century on a single book written when he was still a teenager, but this left me underwhelmed.

Recommended for the enthusiast.

*Neruda was in his early 20s when I was published