appreciate of poetryby Pablo neruda
Answers
Like most of the 102 poems appearing in “Memorial to Isla Negra, “Poetry” is reflective in content. It starts with the conjunction “And” as if it were a part of an ongoing discussion that the poet has been having with his readers. Again, he assumes that we know what “that age” was when he first began to write poetry – Neruda started writing poetry in the early 1920s as a teenager).
Stanza 1
What is amazing is Neruda’s deliberate inversion (this is a poetic talent or inspiration (described here in the form of a person – who comes looking for someone that will compose verses, rather than vice versa) in the very first line when he tells us that poetic’s inspiration came looking for him and impelling him to compose verse, rather than the poet looking for and pursuing her.
Stanza 2
In this second long stanza of the poem, the poet talks about the way he wrote his first line, and what made him to compose his “first faint line”—which means his initial, hesitant verses though the poet lacks in confidence when writing them. He says that there was something that started in his soul, it was either the “forgotten wings”—which means hidden or nameless emotions that could take flight or fever/fire that helped him make his own way and led him to write the first line. Through line 27: someone who knows nothing – the poet means a novice. The poet here acknowledges his ignorance before his muse, whereas through the line 30, he means the outpouring of inspiration which is described as though it were a miracle.
Stanza 3
In this third stanza, the poet says considers himself an infinitesimal being- which means minute or insignificant (as compared to the universe). He says that he is intoxicated (drunk) with the great starry void—meaning—great expanse of endless empty sky filled only with the constellations—likeness—meaning similarity –image of poetry –meaning representations of the unknown and abyss – which means bottomless chasm or deep gorge.
Thus, when the poet started writing poetry, he reached other world that was full of mystery and imagery, he wheeled with starts and his emotions started flying with every word of poetry that he wrote. His heart in fact started flying without bridle and his feelings had no bounds, and whatever he felt or experienced he poured it out in the verse of poetry.
hope this helps you❤