Pablo Neruda’s poem ‘Poetry’

 Pablo Neruda’s poem ‘Poetry’

I request dear readers to read the poem first from the above link. 

Very rarely poets will share an account of how a poem starts as a spark and evolves into a creation. The very reason is a poem speaks by itself. The reader not only appreciates the message hidden in the metaphors and the figurative expressions, but he finds where the poet has a grip over the poem as he is handing over it to the reader’s too. The appreciation of a serious poem which is multilayered and carries subtle expressions and words that can be interpreted and only with the poet’s choice of the expression, is in itself a creative process.

I think in the ending lines Neruda makes clear the impact of a powerful and rich poem, ‘my heart broke loose on the wind.’ The impact is the loosening of the clutches on the mind and the feel of what he calls in the poem ‘infinitesimal being.’ A poem’s high standard and creativity is felt in the voice that echoes the soul of the poet. In prose the reading experience and the thought process that follows the read are the harvest for the reader; whereas after second or third read, a worthy poem breaks down the barriers that hold back one from appreciating the pulsating life in a being. It makes him appreciate an original work of creation without preconceived notions or a conditioned mind. In this poem Neruda reveals what transpired within the poet when he conceived and then as he carved a poem, sentence by sentence, out of his wonderful creativity.