It was September 11. The plot was sprung and the terrorists acted quickly. They were alarmed at the-nature of the country, its policies and thought. The attackers were supported by a foreign government and they felt invincible.
They killed the President, they attacked the centre of power. They did not want free education, free healthcare. A free society. They assembled thousands of the left in Prison camps, they arrested the intellectuals, the writers the poets those who though in other ways. Thousands vanished as, death squads roamed the towns and cities, settling scores and removing troublemakers
Refugees poured into Argentina. The police, the intelligence services and the army was in on it and this was Chile on September 11 1973. Imagine if this had been the USA on September 11 2001 ...and oh wait a moment. The government that was behind the coup in Chile was the USA.
They killed Pablo Neruda. For weeks before the Right had been agitating to destroy the Left. They were too popular it could not be allowed to happen. Remember September 11 in 1973 in Chile. Read the words of Pablo Nurada murdered by the Fascists that took power. They feared his words, did not understand his thoughts, did not read and wanted simple and easy solutions. They called for free speech to peddle their hate and bile. They claimed belief in freedom of speech.........
When you read this beautiful poem you see with in it the very antithesis of racism. conservatism and prejudice. it is the antidote to narrowness and prejudice....when you read it think of who would hate its words and those who would love them...its very interesting .....
The following review was written at the time of Neruda`s murder. With a neo nazi plot revealed in parts of the british army and the rise of the EDL and others...do we have any doubt what would happen to us lefties, progressives and thinkers here..if they took power,,,from joke pictures about the hanging of tony Blair over his European attitudes to the threats that many of us have had on social media...we have no doubt.....
Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)
You start dying slowly
if you do not travel,
if you do not read,
If you do not listen to the sounds of life,
If you do not appreciate yourself.
You start dying slowly
When you kill your self-esteem;
When you do not let others help you.
You start dying slowly
If you become a slave of your habits,
Walking everyday on the same paths…
If you do not change your routine,
If you do not wear different colours
Or you do not speak to those you don’t know.
You start dying slowly
If you avoid to feel passion
And their turbulent emotions;
Those which make your eyes glisten
And your heart beat fast.
You start dying slowly
If you do not change your life when you are not satisfied with your job, or with your love,
If you do not risk what is safe for the uncertain,
If you do not go after a dream,
If you do not allow yourself,
At least once in your lifetime,
To run away from sensible advice…
Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), whose real name is Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, was born on 12 July, 1904, in the town of Parral in Chile. His father was a railway employee and his mother, who died shortly after his birth, a teacher. Some years later his father, who had then moved to the town of Temuco, remarried doña Trinidad Candia Malverde. The poet spent his childhood and youth in Temuco, where he also got to knowGabriela Mistral, head of the girls' secondary school, who took a liking to him. At the early age of thirteen he began to contribute some articles to the daily "La Mañana", among them, Entusiasmo y Perseverancia - his first publication - and his first poem. In 1920, he became a contributor to the literary journal "Selva Austral" under the pen name of Pablo Neruda, which he adopted in memory of the Czechoslovak poet Jan Neruda (1834-1891). Some of the poems Neruda wrote at that time are to be found in his first published book: Crepusculario (1923). The following year saw the publication of Veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada, one of his best-known and most translated works. Alongside his literary activities, Neruda studied French and pedagogy at the University of Chile in Santiago.
Between 1927 and 1935, the government put him in charge of a number of honorary consulships, which took him to Burma, Ceylon, Java, Singapore, Buenos Aires, Barcelona, and Madrid. His poetic production during that difficult period included, among other works, the collection of esoteric surrealistic poems, Residencia en la tierra (1933), which marked his literary breakthrough.
The Spanish Civil War and the murder of García Lorca, whom Neruda knew, affected him strongly and made him join the Republican movement, first in Spain, and later in France, where he started working on his collection of poemsEspaña en el Corazón (1937). The same year he returned to his native country, to which he had been recalled, and his poetry during the following period was characterised by an orientation towards political and social matters. España en el Corazón had a great impact by virtue of its being printed in the middle of the front during the civil war.
In 1939, Neruda was appointed consul for the Spanish emigration, residing in Paris, and, shortly afterwards, Consul General in Mexico, where he rewrote hisCanto General de Chile, transforming it into an epic poem about the whole South American continent, its nature, its people and its historical destiny. This work, entitled Canto General, was published in Mexico 1950, and also underground in Chile. It consists of approximately 250 poems brought together into fifteen literary cycles and constitutes the central part of Neruda's production. Shortly after its publication, Canto General was translated into some ten languages. Nearly all these poems were created in a difficult situation, when Neruda was living abroad.
In 1943, Neruda returned to Chile, and in 1945 he was elected senator of the Republic, also joining the Communist Party of Chile. Due to his protests against President González Videla's repressive policy against striking miners in 1947, he had to live underground in his own country for two years until he managed to leave in 1949. After living in different European countries he returned home in 1952. A great deal of what he published during that period bears the stamp of his political activities; one example is Las Uvas y el Viento (1954), which can be regarded as the diary of Neruda's exile. In Odas elementales (1954- 1959) his message is expanded into a more extensive description of the world, where the objects of the hymns - things, events and relations - are duly presented in alphabetic form.
Neruda's production is exceptionally extensive. For example, his Obras Completas, constantly republished, comprised 459 pages in 1951; in 1962 the number of pages was 1,925, and in 1968 it amounted to 3,237, in two volumes. Among his works of the last few years can be mentioned Cien sonetos de amor(1959), which includes poems dedicated to his wife Matilde Urrutia, Memorial de Isla Negra, a poetic work of an autobiographic character in five volumes, published on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday, Arte de pajáros (1966), La Barcarola (1967), the play Fulgor y muerte de Joaquín Murieta (1967), Las manos del día (1968), Fin del mundo (1969), Las piedras del cielo (1970), and La espada encendida.
Further works
Geografía infructuosa/Barren Geography (poetry), 1972
El mar y las campanas/The Sea and the Bells, tr. (poetry), 1973
Incitación al nixonicidio y alabanza de la revolución chilena/A Call for the Destruction of Nixon and Praise for the Chilean Revolution, tr. (poetry), 1974
El corazón amarillo/The Yellow Heart (poetry), 1974
Defectos escogidos/Selected Waste Paper (poetry), 1974
Elegía/Elegy (poetry), 1974
Confieso que he vivido. Memorias/Memoirs, tr. (prose), 1974
Para nacer he nacido/Passions and Impressions, tr. (prose), 1978
From Nobel Lectures, Literature 1968-1980, Editor-in-Charge Tore Frängsmyr, Editor Sture Allén, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1993
This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.
Pablo Neruda died on September 23, 1973.
Two days ago I wrote a. Short piece about the arrest of four members of the British army who had been charged with being members of a Neo Nazi group and of plotting a terrorist attack. I wrote about this on my blog and posted it widely as I usually do. Facebook blocked me for 24 hours as a result..
What I find truly disturbing is that an article against fascism led to this ban. Over the large few months I have seen on postinss calls to shoot remainers, attack gay people and transgender people and kill lefties. Yesterday a former UKIP staffer for Caroline Jones AM had a picture on his timeline of a noose around the neck of Tony Blair. This has not left to a similar action by Facebook. In the light of the so called libertarian claim of equivalence between fascist and anti fascist campaigner.....such events become disturbing. I have had massive support in the last 24 hours....please make your displeasure known to Facebook.
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