Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

"Verb" by Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basualto, more widely known as Pablo Neruda, is a captivating poem that delves into the power and limitations of language. In this poem, Neruda expresses a desire to alter a particular word, which he finds "much too flat," to better capture the complex reality it aims to signify. Through this singular focus on a word's texture and depth, Neruda navigates themes of authenticity, elemental forces, and the very essence of human communication.

The poem opens with the speaker announcing his intent to reshape a word, which feels to him "as if a great dog or great river had passed its tongue or water over it during many years." This initial metaphor is fascinating in its dual imagery: the smoothing out of the word could be either an organic, natural process, like water eroding a rock, or an act of domestication, like a dog licking something into shape. Either way, the word has lost its rawness, and the speaker aims to recover it.

Neruda's dissatisfaction with the word lies in its inability to convey "the roughness," "the iron salt," and "the de-fanged strength of the land." These elemental references underscore the speaker's desire for a language that is as primal, as rooted, and as textured as the Earth itself. He wants the word to encapsulate both "the blood of those who have spoken and those who have not spoken," thereby bridging the divide between vocal and silent experiences.

"I want to see the thirst / Inside the syllables / I want to touch the fire / in the sound," the speaker declares. These lines evoke a sensory engagement with language that goes beyond mere auditory or visual experience. Neruda wishes to imbue the word with a kind of corporeal urgency, as if the word could manifest physical properties like "thirst" or "fire." This intense desire complicates our conventional understanding of language as mere symbol; for the speaker, language must also be substance.

In the concluding lines, "I want words as rough as virgin rocks," Neruda yearns for a lexicon that is unpolished, untamed, and potent. The word "virgin" here implies something unaltered, in its natural state, with all its innate imperfections and asymmetries. He's not calling for new words but for the revitalization of existing ones so that they might better reflect the multifaceted experiences they are meant to capture.

"Verb" is a stirring meditation on the power of words to both describe and fail the world it seeks to represent. Neruda's poem itself becomes a kind of meta-text, a word about words, that criticizes the complacency of received language while offering a vision for its potential transformation. This remarkable piece makes the reader reflect on how language, when deeply considered, can be both an inadequate vessel for human experience and a malleable tool that can be reshaped to better encompass the raw, visceral essence of life itself.

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