GREATS: (Left to right) Tasos Leivaditis, Nicolas Calas and Pablo Neruda
HENRY BELL is fascinated by the underlying curiosities and contradictions of one of the great poets of the Mediterranean
DAVID RENTON recommends a books that explores the ways in which disabled people are made to feel both of and not part of this world
JONATHAN TAYLOR is fascinated by the philosophical problems that permeate the art of life-writing
GORDON PARSONS steps warily in between the lines of Britain’s most famous diarist
SIMON DUFF recommends a recording of Arvo Part that takes the listener on a pilgrimage through seemingly distant times and events of the Bible
READERS who only know the political poetry of Chilean communist poet Pablo Neruda (1904-73) will be surprised and delighted by The Captain’s Verses (Carcanet, £14.99).
Published anonymously in 1952, this bilingual edition is a reprint of the Anvil Press 2003 edition translated by Brian Cole. They are a series of poems written for Neruda’s third wife, Matilde:
“I did not pause in the struggle./I did not cease to march towards life,/towards peace, towards bread for all,/but I lifted you up in my arms/and I nailed you to my kisses/and I gazed on you as never/human eyes will gaze on you again.”
A novel by Argentinian Jorge Consiglio, a personal dictionary by Uruguayan Ida Vitale, and poetry by Mexican Homero Aridjis
