Outdated Browser

For the best experience using our website, we recommend upgrading your browser to a newer version or switching to a supported browser.

More Information

Odes by Pablo Neruda

October 2013

Pablo Neruda’s biographer Adam Feinstein introduces five odes by the great poet, appearing in English for the first time in Ilan Stavans’s lovely translations.

Making the Ordinary Extraordinary: Pablo Neruda’s Odes

By Adam Feinstein

Neruda’s odes are neither didactic nor artificial.

Ode to Jean Arthur Rimbaud

By Pablo Neruda

Now, / this October / you will turn / a hundred, / harrowing friend.

Translated from Spanish by Ilan Stavans

Ode to the Andean Cordillera

By Pablo Neruda

The cold candelabra / of your elevated / solitudes of snow

Translated from Spanish by Ilan Stavans

Ode to Ángel Cruchaga

By Pablo Neruda

You were / the silvery tail / of a green mermaid / crossing the sky.

Translated from Spanish by Ilan Stavans

Ode to Juan Tarrea

By Pablo Neruda

I cannot / worry about you, poor Tarrea.

Translated from Spanish by Ilan Stavans

Ode to the Flowers of Datitla

By Pablo Neruda

The tiger-flower flourishes / with three tongues / of ultraviolet love.

Translated from Spanish by Ilan Stavans