"Love is so short, and forgetting is so long."
— Pablo Neruda
A strong gathering of poets take part in World Poetry Day locally by reading works honoring Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904-73).
The event is one of numerous observations of the date, which UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) proclaimed in 1999. The purpose of the celebration is to promote poetry and "give fresh recognition and impetus to national, regional and international poetry movements."
At an official ceremony held by the Canada Council for the Arts at the National Library of Canada, the finalists for the Griffin Poetry Prize are to be announced, and the $80,000 awarded certainly qualifies as fresh impetus.
Neruda, perhaps the most important Latin-American poet of the 20th century, led a complex life, born the son of a railway worker to a mother who would die within a month of his birth. A precocious boy, he began writing poetry at 10 and, despite discouragement from his father, gradually devoted more and more of himself to it. The subtle, elegant poems of his first collection, Crepusculario (1923), proved his competency in the symbolic style of Modernismo, and his second collection, Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, was instantly popular for its poignant, vivid expressions of unhappy love.
It seems unlikely that today the world would see a poet working as a diplomat or politician, but Neruda, very much a part of his country's political life, acted as consul in Barcelona, then Madrid, Paris, Mexico and, having returned to Chile in 1943, was elected senator in 1945. This while he wrote more than 30 books.
Farrar Straus & Giroux recently published The Poetry of Pablo Neruda, selected works totaling 1040 pages.
The local reading takes place from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Church of Scientology's new community center on Habana Avenue. The featured poets include Sonja Dunn, a Canadian author and performer; Veronica Duran, an Ecuadorian poet who's participated in regular readings in New York City (Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Tribes, the Bowery Poets Club); and Rhonda J. Nelson, a Florida Fellow in Poetry 2000-01.
Scientology, founded upon the writings of philosopher L. Ron Hubbard, states its aims as, "A civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war, where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and where man is free to rise to greater heights… ." And that sounds in line with what Neruda upheld.
Church of Scientology of Tampa Community Center, 3102 N. Habana Ave., Tampa (813-872-0722).
This article appears in Mar 18-24, 2004.