Today is the 1-year anniversary of KNAU's Poetry Friday. Hundreds of listeners have taken part in the series, showcasing original works, poems by famous authors and lots and lots of back stories. To honor this milestone, KNAU listener, author and NAU professor, Monica Brown, shares the poetry and ideology of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, one of the most widely read Latin-American poets of all time. He was known as 'The Peoples' Poet' and for his love poems. What better way to celebrate 1-year of Poetry Friday than with a little love? Here is a reading of Pablo Neruda's 'Poet's Obligation'.
Monica Brown:
I think this quote by Pablo Neruda really embodies his feelings about the role of the poet in society, and it is certainly the way he lived his life:
“On our Earth, before writing was invented, before the printing press was invented, poetry flourished. That is why we know that poetry is like bread; it should be shared by all, by scholars and by peasants, by all our vast, incredible, extraordinary family of humanity.”
Programs like this that bring poetry to the people on a regular basis, I think are fantastic because they speak to the passion in each of us; our political passions, our personal passions, and we are connected by language, and lyricism, and joy. So today, I’ve selected ‘Poet’s Obligation’. I like it because it speaks to Neruda’s desire to reach everyone through poetry…to bring the ocean to the prisoner trapped in a cell.
Poet's Obligation, by Pablo Neruda
To whoever is not listening to the sea
this Friday morning, to whoever is cooped up
in house or office, factory or woman
or street or mine or harsh prison cell;
to him I come, and, without speaking or looking,
I arrive and open the door of his prison,
and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,
a great fragment of thunder sets in motion
the rumble of the planet and the foam,
the raucous rivers of the ocean flood,
the star vibrates swiftly in its corona,
and the sea is beating, dying and continuing.
So, drawn on by my destiny,
I ceaselessly must listen to and keep
the sea's lamenting in my awareness,
I must feel the crash of the hard water
and gather it up in a perpetual cup
so that, wherever those in prison may be,
wherever they suffer the autumn's castigation,
I may be there with an errant wave,
I may move, passing through windows,
and hearing me, eyes will glance upward
saying 'How can I reach the sea?'
And I shall broadcast, saying nothing,
the starry echoes of the wave,
a breaking up of foam and quicksand,
a rustling of salt withdrawing,
the grey cry of the sea-birds on the coast.
So, through me, freedom and the sea
will make their answer to the shuttered heart.
Poetry Friday is produced by KNAU's Gillian Ferris. If you have an idea for a segment, drop her an email at Gillian.Ferris@nau.edu.
