Tuesday, February 09, 2010

You Gotta Be
Tender & Tough

'Each morning I place on my writing table a carnation and a hammer.'
--Pablo Neruda, the Chilean poet who we once called the Poet Laureate of Love. Turns out he also believed in mixing a soft heart with a firm discipline for his craft. But then, no real surprises there. Anyway, you can sample his poems here.

4 Comments:

At 9:39 PM, Anonymous Mike Q said...

I had never read Pablo Neruda before, so thanks for the introduction.

I'm a little less grateful to confront once again the lengths we've gone to wring every marketing dollar out of the web. In the poem A Lemon, for example, Neruda evokes images with "flowers loosed on the moonlight" and the "tree's yellow" emerging, but PoemHunter.com hyperlinks the words to Oakland Florists and Big Tree Moving and Preservation Experts. In A Dog Has Died, place your mouse over "friendship" and the popup urges you to "Get Swiffer to eliminate dog hair from your home."

I think I know what Neruda would have said: "Ai!"

 
At 10:36 PM, Blogger John Ettorre said...

That's both funny and annoying, Mike. I didn't notice that about that site. On the other hand, I suppose there's always a cost to be paid for the convenience of having free information. Perhaps I should start embedding my material with ads for viagra and get-rich-quick schemes. Now there's an idea!

 
At 5:12 AM, Blogger Kass said...

John and Mike, your comments are worth commenting on. I looked at the site too, but just wasn't in the mood to read about love, however great Naruda is...and he is great, don't get me wrong, but the lightness of your comments is what I'm into in the wee hours of my insomniac perusing.

 
At 6:26 AM, Blogger John Ettorre said...

Here's hoping that our virtual joshing helped put you right to sleep, Kass.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home