Extravagaria

Reflective later poems of the fiery, Nobel-Prize winning Chilean poet, with English translations and the original Spanish side-by-side on facing pages.

While things are settling down,
here I've left my testament,
my shifting extravagaria,
so whoever goes on reading it
will never take in anything
except the constant moving
of a clear and bewildered man,
a man rainy and happy,
lively and autumn-minded.

--from "Autumn testament"

Extravagaria marks an important stage in Neruda's progress as a poet. The book was written just after he had returned to Chile after many wanderings and moved to his beloved Isla Negra on the Pacific coast. The collection celebrates this coming to rest, this rediscovery of the sea and the land, and the evolution of a a lyric poetry that is decidedly more personal than Neruda's earlier work. Written in what he called his "autumnal" period, the sixty-eight poems range from the wistful to the exultant, combining psalm and speculation, meditation and humorous aside.