"The Separate Rose" is Pablo Neruda's poetic tribute to Rapanui (also known as Easter Island), one of the most remote islands of the Pacific. Although many of the poems in this volume could stand on their own, this book is a truly unified work which should be read in its entirety.

William O'Daly has translated Neruda's Spanish into a simple but sensuous English free verse. In this bilingual edition, Neruda's poems stand side-by-side with O'Daly's excellent tranlations, making the book especially useful to English-speaking students of Spanish (or Spanish-speaking students of English). O'Daly's excellent introduction discusses the history and culture of Rapanui, and also discusses the background of Neruda's poetic interpretation of the island.

Neruda's poetry in "The Separate Rose" skillfully captures the complexity of the world of Rapanui. The poet's generous vision takes in both the motley tourists and the monumental stone sculptures that have made the island famous. In some of the book's most powerful poems, Neruda reflects on Lord Wind, the ancient deity said to have reigned over Rapanui.

And as always, Neruda demonstrates his command of poetic language. Whether describing airplanes as "enormous aluminum geese" (p. 15), reflecting on his own heritage as "apprentice to volcanoes" (p. 19), or addressing Rapanui as "cry / of the mourning petrel, tooth of the sea" (p. 51), Neruda always uses the tools of language in thought-provoking ways.

"The Separate Rose" is more than just an important part of a great poet's canon of writings; it is a moving reflection on a unique and timeless land.

Neruda's poems are wishes. This particular work, "Still Another Day" is the last of his writings. It gives us the courage to live in finding words to express one's will to live. Neruda's mastery of the beauty of language is impressive in its English translation and, for certain, it is extraordinary in his native Spanish.

The BOOK OF QUESTIONS was written in 1973, a few months before Neruda's death to cancer. Troubled by the knowledge of his impending death, as well as by a U.S. backed coup threatening the Allende government in Chile (Leftist regime 1970-73), Neruda wrote several small books of brief poems, comprised simply of unanswerable questions, in the koan tradition (question/statement in the form of a paradox that disciples of Zen ponder). They are enigmatic, at times surreal, leaving you lost in labyrinths of deep thought, or in abstract bewilderment.

My favorite questions include:

Why do leaves commit suicide
When they feel yellow?

and

When the convict ponders the light
is it the same light that shines on you?

--ross saciuk

I know I'll be returning to this book over and over throughout my entire life, even if it's only to read one question and let it perk for a day or longer. A question is a wonderful way to experience poetry: each question is a seed, that with time, can grow into something different and something great within each person that reads it.

This was among Pablo Neruda's last works. He left us with a great gift.

316 questions posed by the great poet just months before his death. I found more than 70 of them worth copying into my journal, and I'm not particularly compulsive about things like that. Reading them, you will probably find yourself transported to an especially thoughtful and unusual frame of mind.

Here are some favorites:

Is it true that in an anthill, dreams are duty?
Am I allowed to ask my book whether it's true I wrote it?
Why did the grove undress itself only to wait for the snow?
You have room for some thorns? they asked the rose bush.
Where can you find a bell that will ring in your dreams?
Does the earth sing like a cricket in the music of the heavens?
And at whom does rice smile with infinitely many white teeth?
Will Czechoslovakians or turtles be born from your ashes?
In dreams, do plants blossom and their solemn fruit ripen?
And why does my skeleton pursue me if my soul has fallen away?
Isn't the city the great ocean of quaking mattresses?
What did the tree learn from the earth to be able to talk with the sky?
What was awaiting me in Isla Negra? The green truth or decorum?

Pablo Neruda is one of my favorite poets of all time, however, William O' Daly does not do Neruda justice. His translation is flat and unevocative, and unable to invoke those true emotions that Neruda is famous for. I would recommend checking out translations by W.S. Merwin if you want the full ecstatic experience that Neruda usually so eloquently conveys.

The Sea and The Bells is the best poetry collection I've ever read. Uncompleted at the time of Neruda's death, only 1/3 of the poems in this collection were titled. However, the wisdom and eloquence with which Neruda worked in the last year of his life is without peer in the canon of 20th century poetry. His "Finale" written on his deathbed to his wife, Matilde, is devastating.

Neruda's balance of humor, power, spirituality, compassion and love is so clear in a few of these poems, you may find these poems like little prayers on which you can meditate. For example:

If each day falls
inside each night,
there exists a well
where clarity is imprisoned.

We need to sit on the rim
of the well of darkness
and fish for fallen light
with patience.

Maybe it's just me, but this kind of poetry reads like the wise words of a Buddhist monk high in the mountains of Nepal, man. This collection is the deaf, dope jam.

The only criticism I have is with the translation. William O'Daly makes several unusually bland decisions in translating from the original Spanish. For example, Neruda literally writes in We Are Waiting "o para asesinarnos de inmediato" where the verb "assassinate" is pretty darn clear. The phrase literally translates "or to immediately assassinate us." Given the political tension Neruda was writing under having won the Nobel Prize and having returned to Chile, it is reasonably clear why he used the word "assassinate." O'Daly's translation reads: "or to instantly murder us" opting for the bland general word "murder" rather than the clear, stronger word "assassinate." O'Daly makes similarly odd decisions throughout the text. Fortunately, the original Spanish appears alongside O'Daly's translation so you can read what Neruda actually wrote.

Beyond the translation, this is the best poetry collection I have ever read. I highly recommend it to anyone who appreciates language being used at its absolute finest. The Sea and The Bells raises the bar for all of us. Read it, and enjoy!

Stacey

I have to disagree entirely with the reviewer below. If he is pining for the wild exuberances characteristics of earlier stages in Neruda's writings, he should not look for it here: for all their wordplay, these last books of Neruda's (the handful he worked on simultaneously during the last year of his life) are about preparing for death. I've noticed here and there some nuance which seemed not to have caught the translator's eye, but otherwise he has made a remarkably rewarding transation of the ruminative, supple-then-lurching tone of PN's Spanish. "The Sea and the Bells" is a crockpot of mystery, a book to read and learn slowly over years.

The poems in this volume were found in manuscript after the poet's death in 1973. For Neruda, whose poetry so often explodes with life through images of nature and man-made objects bathed in equatorial sunlight pouring from the page in a torrent of language, this volume feels more somber. The images of nature remain abundant, especially those of the sea surrounding his final home on Isla Negra. But the usual tone of a restless celebrant has been muted, replaced by a voice at once valedictory and resigned. Best of all the poet displays a humility that makes these poems moving and accessible.

The subjects of the poems range from meditations on the natural world during winter, the deaths of two activist friends, and the poet's responsiblities, to reflections on the loss of a beloved dog and the poet's own impending death. Neruda's tendencies to create lists and use surrealist techniques have been tempered and integrated into the poetry, keeping them from the wearisome quality of some earlier volumes. This may be a darker book than many volumes of Nedura's verse; but, in no way depressing, Neruda's vision of final things offers comfort. In fact, though it may seem cliched to write it, these poems are truly beautiful.

The edition offered here is bilingual, allowing you the chance to read Neruda directly if you know Spanish. Having no knowledge of Spanish I can only comment that O'Daly's translations are fluid and clear: an hour's steady reading, or meditations to be pondered more slowly over several days. The book itself is designed tastefully making the reading experience all the more enjoyable.

"Winter Garden" is one of several posthumously published volumes of poetry by Pablo Neruda, who died in 1973. This volume is a thoughtful, and frequently melancholy, collection by the great Chilean poet. William O'Daly has translated the poems into a smooth, graceful English. Although I don't believe that "Winter Garden" is quite in the same league as Neruda's greatest works, it is still a deeply moving work that is graced by passages of transcendent beauty.

In this collection of short poems Neruda writes about love, death, nature, and other topics. The natural world is a particularly rich presence: fields, apple trees, Andean snow, "the coasts of Chile," birds in flight, and more appear throughout the book.

Neruda is particularly moving when reflecting upon his lifelong quest to fulfil the poet's duty. It is heartbreaking when he laments, "I didn't have enough time or ink for everyone" and asks forgiveness "from anyone not here" (in the poem "For All to Know"). If you have been moved by the other great works of Neruda, or if you simply appreciate beautiful and emotionally rich poetry, you will want to read "Winter Garden."