Several times over the past several years, we’ve worked with the idea of writing “In the Style of…” The one I’m remembering right now is “In the Style of E.E. Cummings.” Writing like E.E. Cummings is far from easy but there is something so wildly distinct that it felt possible. It felt like we could pick up what he’d put down. Y’know?
This month, though, we’re writing “In the Style of Pablo Neruda.” Ummmm. Wow. OK, let’s see. We talked about it as a group — what were some recognizable characteristics, patterns, watchwords? What exactly was this style in which we were supposed to write? We threw some good fodder on the table — sonnets, odes, lush and considered language, the natural world, love, love and more love. And then, we went for it.
Here’s what I decided to do. I took his Book of Questions (an excerpted and illustrated version of which is here) and decided to turn the tables on Neruda and ask questions of or about him. Most everything in here has a taproot into his work or biography, and I genuinely tried to think about his ‘style,’ slippery though it may be.
Anyway, here goes…
If You Were…
After Neruda’s Book of Questions
If you were to pick your own name
like a lemon, what would it be?
When you said it aloud, would it echo?
Would it leave ripples
on the water like a stone?
If fourteen lines makes a sonnet,
is eight lines a song and six lines
a net for catching stars?
How is there room
in fourteen lines
for so much love,
for rain and fire and wheat
and live birds and shadows
of everything?
If you speak with roses and bells
for the workers and the revolutionaries,
does everybody understand?
And do you understand
everybody?
Does some suffering sit
in your hand like ore
while the rest slips
through your fingers,
while the rest is dashed
over your shoulder like salt?
Is exile a way to be lost?
Is exile a way to lose yourself?
If you were from Chile
and from Spain and from France,
where would you keep your shoes?
Who might mend your shirts?
Would you drop cumin
or saffron
or tarragon
into your soup pot?
What direction would you face
when you turned toward home?
To read everyone else’s take on Neruda, go here:
Tricia
Mary Lee
Tanita
Sara
Kelly
Laura
And Ruth is hosting Poetry Friday at There is No Such Thing as a God-forsaken Town.
As for next month, we’ll be writing ghazals! Join us?
Brilliant. Periodt.
This is showstoppingly wonderful. I could read this over and over and over….
Liz, beautifully done in Neruda-style, to be sure. These lines speak to me today about the power the poet wields:
“If you speak with roses and bells
for the workers and the revolutionaries,
does everybody understand?”
This is incredibly beautiful. The bit about suffering speaks to me.
Oh, Liz! This is…Lizuda? It’s you and Neruda, beautiful entwined.
Mmm. Hmm.
“If fourteen lines makes a sonnet,
is eight lines a song and six lines
a net for catching stars?”
Yep. Neruda-flavored and deliciously demanding, just like I called him in my post! Brava.
Liz, sooo lovely. You Poetry People are brilliant.
P.S. As luck and the universe would have it, I bought this book just yesterday (Indie Bookstore Day!) from Wilmington NC’s Pomegranate Books.
P.P.S. EVERY SINGLE TIME I type “Pomegranate,” “Poem” comes out first.
I’m trying to catch up and glad I did to find your lovely poem, Liz. Wouldn’t it be illuminating to read his answers? I recognize some references but don’t know his poems very well. It’s been fun reading what all of you have written.