Of Poets and Poems and Il Postino

Sean Bean in Equilibrium

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Once in a while I'm in the mood for poetry.  Nothing else will  satisfy the emptiness of the moment.  


I'm not one to go to poetry readings, or jot down verse in a notebook or iPad, or subscribe to some obscure literary magazine, but I do have my favorite poems and poets. Some I grew up around, an inheritance from my family's love of books, some I found during my school years, some I've been introduced to by others.  There is a certain common emotional theme to poems I like, even if I often deny it.  


Three of my favorite poets are Pablo Neruda,  Jose Angel Buesa, and Emily Dickinson,  Below three of my favorite poems...and a bit about one of my favorite films. 


Oh yes, this is a bilingual post. 


Pablo Neruda: Me Gustas Cuando Callas/I Like You When You Are Quiet

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) was a Chilean poet, diplomat, and politician.  I know him best for his love poems, or as critics describe them, his  passionate and erotically charged love poems.  

 Like You When You Are Quiet

I like you when you are quiet because it is as though you are absent, 

and you hear me from far away, and my voice does not touch you. 

It looks as though your eyes had flown away 

and it looks as if a kiss had sealed your mouth.

Like all things are full of my soul 

You emerge from the things, full of my soul. 

Dream butterfly, you look like my soul, 

and you look like a melancoly word.

I like you when you are quiet and it is as though you are distant. 

It is as though you are complaining, butterfly in lullaby. 

And you hear me from far away, and my voice does not reach you: 

let me fall quiet with your own silence.

Let me also speak to you with your silence 

Clear like a lamp, simple like a ring. 

You are like the night, quiet and constellated.

Your silence is of a star, so far away and solitary.

I like you when you are quiet because it is as though you are absent. 

Distant and painful as if you had died. 

A word then, a smile is enough. 

And I am happy, happy that it is not true.

thue.stanford.edu

Two of my favorite movies may have introduced many around the world to Neruda's poetry: Truly, Madly, Deeply(1990) and Il Postino (1994). 

Il Postino is a fictional story about a postman in a small Italian village who forms a friendship and is inspired by the famous poet, Neruda, who is in political exile from his country. The postman is in love and romances the love of his life and learns to love words because of Neruda. The great French actor Phillippe Noiret (Neruda) and Italian actor Massimo Troisi (the Postman) are wonderful in this lovely and moving film. 

Jose Angel Buesa:  Poema del Renunciamiento/Poem of Renunciation

Jose Angel Buesa (1910-1982)  was a Cuban poet, known for  his melancholic and romantic poetry, often about unrequited love.  The last years of his life he lived in exile, and he passed away in the Dominican Republic. In the video above, Buesa reads his own poem.

Poem of Renunciation

You will walk through my life without knowing you did,

You will walk in silence through my love and when you do

I will pretend with a smile, like a sweet contrast

of the pain for loving you… and you will never know.

I will dream with the virgin mother-of-pearl of your forehead

I will dream with your green sea emerald eyes,

I will dream with your lips, desperately,

I will dream with your kisses…and you will never know.

Maybe you will walk around with someone else that tells you

phrases that no one could ever tell you like I would do

And, drowning for ever my unnoticed love,

I will love you more than ever… and you will never know.

I will love you in silence… like someone inaccessible,

Like a dream that will never come true,

and the far perfume of my impossible love

will touch your hair… and you will never know.

Emily Dickinson: Hope is the thing with Feathers

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)  was born in Amherst, Massachusetts. Though she lived a reclusive life, she must have had a fascinating inner life. 


Hope     

Hope is the thing with feathers 

That perches in the soul, 

And sings the tune--without the words, 

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard; 

And sore must be the storm 

That could abash the little bird 

That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land, 

And on the strangest sea; 

Yet, never, in extremity, 

It asked a crumb of me.

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Do you have a favorite poet or poem? Do you write poetry?