Poetry

[Gobo]

As a newcomer to poetry i was wondering if people had any suggestions for good poets.. I'm totaly and utterly in love with Pablo Neruda, but i can't seem to get into anyone else. I've got Lorcas selected works, which are very good, but still nowhere near as good as Neruda. I also have Blake, although i recognise it's very good, it's not quite my thing.

[waalkwriter]

T.S. Eliot.

[Loki]

There's already a thread about poetry. Here it is:
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/...hp/3832-Poetry

[Eric]

What I like about Pablo Neruda, aka Ricardo Eliecer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto, to give him his real name (he nicked his pseudonym from the Czech Jan Neruda) is his morality. I read a longish article in the NZZ the other day (issue 15th August 2011) where Bolaño said back in 2002: "I didn't like Neruda. At any rate, I wouldn't use him as a role model. Anyone who is capable of writing odes to Stalin and to shut his eyes to the horrors of Stalinism has not earnt my respect".

Maybe, Gobo, the people a writer worships (not in quasi-senility like Hamsun and Hitler, but fully aware of what they are doing like Basoalto the Pseudonymous) reflect his personality. As you can see on the front page of a recent issue of "Der Spiegel" (German weekly news magazine) where the two mass murders are depicted together, both Stalin and Hitler were monsters. Chile had its own monsters among its generals, but the fact that Neruda loved Stalin says everything about the man behind the poet.

So do carry on reading his poems, but remember what he stood for.