Neruda

                 Pablo Neruda wrote the poem “Walking Around” and it is found in The Norton Anthology of World Literature: Shorter Edition, Two-Volume Set. Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) was born in Parral, a small town in Southern Chile. According to The Norton Anthology of World Literature “Pablo Neruda became Latin America’s most important twentieth-century poet as well as an advocate for social justice and a leading cultural figure on the Communist left. He wrote in a variety of styles (lyrical, polemic, objective, and prophetic) on an array of subjects (love, daily life, the natural world, political oppression), evoking the most elemental levels of human emotion and experience” (1421).  

                Neruda wrote “It happens that I go into the tailor’s shops and the movies/all shriveled up, impenetrable, like a felt swan/navigating on a water of origin and ash” (Ins 2-4). He compares the shops and movies to a fake swan that tries to glide on origin and ash. Neruda shows how tired he is, he wrote, “It happens that I am tired of my feet and my nails/and my hair and my shadow” (Ins. 9-10). He is tired to the bone and his depressed outlook on his city. Neruda said that “Monday burns like oil” (Ins. 26) and that because of this said “And it shows me along to certain corners, to certain damp houses, /to hospitals where the bones come out of the windows” (Ins. 30-31). Neruda walks with calm, but inside being angry. Neruda wrote “I pass, I cross offices and stores full of orthopaedic appliances, /and courtyards hung with clothes on wires, /underpants, towels, and shirts which weep/slow dirty tears” (Ins. 42-45). This presented the depressed view of daily life that Neruda had.

Works Cited

Neruda, Pablo. “Walking Around”. The Norton Anthology of World Literature: Shorter Third Edition, Two- Volume Set. W.W. Norton. Ed. M Puchner. 2012. 1421-1426. Print.

"Pablo Neruda" The Norton Anthology of World Literature: Shorter Third Edition, Two- Volume Set. W.W. Norton. Ed. M Puchner. 2012. 1421-1426. Print.