Stones of the Sky

by Pablo Neruda, James Nolan (Translator)

This suite of thirty poems is Neruda's last love song to the Earth. When he wrote these poems he was dying of cancer, and as the title suggests he addresses not ordinary stones, but cosmic stones that reconcile immobile permanence and the clarity of spiritual flight. When the poet meets his crystallized self, the encounter "takes on an eerie brilliance"— The Village Voice . Bilingual with introduction. "An excellent bilingual editon."— Choice

Genres: Poetry, Latin American, Classics

70 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Pablo Neruda, born Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto in 1904 in Parral, Chile, was a poet, diplomat, and politician, widely considered one of the most influential literary figures of the 20th century. From an early age, he showed a deep passion for poetry, publishing his first works as a teenager. He adopted the pen name Pablo Neruda to avoid disapproval from his father, who discouraged his literary ambitions. His breakthrough came with Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, 1924), a collection of deeply emotional and sensual poetry that gained international recognition and remains one of his most celebrated works.
Neruda’s career took him beyond literature into diplomacy, a path that allowed him to travel extensively and engage with political movements around the world. Beginning in 1927, he served in various consular posts in Asia and later in Spain, where he witnessed the Spanish Civil War and became an outspoken advocate for the Republican cause. His experiences led him to embrace communism, a commitment that would shape much of his later poetry and political activism. His collection España en el corazón (Spain in Our Hearts, 1937) reflected his deep sorrow over the war and marked a shift toward politically engaged writing.
Returning to Chile, he was elected to the Senate in 1945 as a member of the Communist Party. However, his vocal opposition to the repressive policies of President Gabriel Gonzalez Videla led to his exile. During this period, he traveled through various countries, including Argentina, Mexico, and the Soviet Union, further cementing his status as a global literary and political figure. It was during these years that he wrote Canto General (1950), an epic work chronicling Latin American history and the struggles of its people.
Neruda’s return to Chile in 1952 marked a new phase in his life, balancing political activity with a prolific literary output. He remained a staunch supporter of socialist ideals and later developed a close relationship with Salvador Allende, who appointed him as Chile’s ambassador to France in 1970. The following year, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, recognized for the scope and impact of his poetry. His later years were marked by illness, and he died in 1973, just days after the military coup that overthrew Allende. His legacy endures, not only in his vast body of work but also in his influence on literature, political thought, and the cultural identity of Latin America.

Reviews

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Turquoise, I love you
as if you were my girlfriend,
as if you were mine:
you are everywhere:
you are just washed,
just recently sky blue,
just fallen from above:
you are the sky's eyes:
you slice through the surface
of the shop, of the air:
blue almond:
sky talon:
bride.

[arcobaleno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una trentina di poesie per rilassare la mente, durante qualche manciata di minuti in biblioteca: proprio quel che cercavo in un momento di particolare tensione! Un piccolo libretto che ho poi portato a casa, per proseguire …la cura.
In pochi versi liberi, un intero pensiero, la chiave per la vita e la morte, che potrei così sintetizzare: “pietra eravamo e pietra torneremo”. Nell’eternità dei minerali, la caducità della vita. Io sono questo nudo/ minerale:/ eco del sotterraneo:/ sono felice/ di venire da così lontano,/da tanta terra:/ ultimo sono, appena/viscere, corpo, mani,/ che si scostarono senza saper perché/ dalla roccia materna,/ senza speranza di permanere,/ deciso all’umano transitorio,/ destinato a vivere e a sfogliarsi.
Ma c’è anche una ricchezza di colori e trasparenze, quelli di tutte le pietre della terra; ci sono i riflessi e le luci del cielo, come scrigni preziosi contenenti le gemme della Vita. Ci sono i silenzi e i ripetersi delle aurore e delle onde del mare. (La pietra era lì prima del vento,/ prima dell’uomo e prima dell’aurora:/ il suo primo movimento/ fu la prima musica del fiume.
E c’è l’amore inesauribile per la sua donna.

Si diffonda nella crisi,
in altra genesi, nel cataclisma,
il corpo di colei che amo,
in ossidiana, in agata, in zaffiro,
in granito flagellato
dal vento del sale d’Antofagasta.
Che il suo minuscolo corpo,
le sue ciglia,
i piedi, i seni, le sue gambe di pane,
le sue vaste labbra, la sua parola rossa
continuino la pelle dell’alabastro:
che il suo cuore morto
canti rotolando e scenda
con le pietre del fiume
verso l’oceano.

[SMehdi Razavi · Rating 1 out of 5]

این کتاب شعر، تو دنیا به شدت مشهور و مورد استقباله.پس یه جای کار میلنگه که فارسیش اینقد گنگ و نامفهومه.احتمال اول اینه که ایراد از مترجمه و این ایراد شامل دو بخش میتونه باشه:بلد نبودنِ زبان مبدا یا عدم تسلط به زبان مقصد.احتمال دوم اینه که انگلیسی و فرانسه و بقیه زبون‌هایی که این شعرها رو به صورت ترجمه شده خوندن و اون سطح از لذت رو تجربه کردن که باعث نوشتن تمجیدهای طوفانی شده، ویژگیهای زبانی و فرهنگی مشترکی با نرودا دارن که ما نداریم و این ما رو از درک شعر عاجز میکنه(که این هم بخاطر شیلیایی بودنِ نرودا احتمالش کمه).احتمال سوم هم اینه که مشکل از گیرنده است و نباید به فرستنده دست زد :|||

[Yasmin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Over ten years on since I first read it and it's still as beautiful to me now as it was then.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

More like a 3.7

[Jordi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A love song to the cosmic stones and to earth and its strength, and a eulogy to the delicate, vulnerable, feeble human existance.

"to harden the earth
the rocks took charge;
instantly
they grew wings;
the rocks
that soared;
the survivors
flew up
the lightening bolt,
screamed in the night,
a watermark,
a violet sword,
a meteor""

The beauty of description of the earthly and heavenly stones that Neruda gives us is merely one part of this poetry collection; the love, admiration, and jealousy of the strong, beautiful rocks is a front for a great pain- the suffering and the weakness of humanity. The comparison comes up often between the giant immortal beings that are the rocks, and the small mortal life of man.

"the dark stone does not know
the passing pace of the worm"

The reader not need to know that Neruda was dying as he wrote these verses, as the fact reveals itself boldly, yet subtly, within the folds of this beautiful book.
There are two peices of short prose/memoires in this collection that are equally fascinating, speaking of magical personal experiences in relation to rocks. I, like Neruda, am fascinated with rocks, and was spell-bound by this collection. Nevertheless, it is still not my favorite of his works.

Neruda is an Alchemist of Words, he possesses magic that turns language into beauty in its most pure form. Pablo, if you really believed that your death was the end of you, you are so wrong; your words are but diamonds, eternal and pure.

[g026r · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love Neruda, and I want to love these poems. The subject matter, the lyricism — all mean I should enjoy it.

One thing, however, makes it impossible for me to enjoy this particular version: the translation. It's not the words chosen, but rather that Nolan has at times decided to change the form of the poems themselves. Single lines where two clauses are linked by a colon are frequently split into two for reasons that appear to have nothing to do with rhythm or length and everything to do with highlighting the second clause. This highlighting of phrases that Nolan feels important also shows up with single lines that separated out from the stanza it was part of in the original. At one point he even goes so far as to change the number of stanzas in a poem. (XXVII, a single stanza in the original, becomes 3 stanzas in his version.)

I can, and frequently do, quibble with word and phrasing choices and still enjoy a poem in translation, and I understand that the vagaries of moving between two languages makes changes to form all but inevitable. But, at the same time, I find changing the form itself to the extent found here to be unforgivable.

[Rachel]

A unique meditation on mortality, Stones of the Sky has a mournful, almost desperate quality to it; I could feel the unspoken urgency of Neruda's cancer diagnosis in this piece. The poet confronts the reader with the messy decay of the human body in comparison to the clean immortality of stone, and speaks with envious wonder of the permanence and beauty of the inanimate earth. Unfortunately, the translation left a lot to be desired. I have only the most passing knowledge of Spanish, but I noticed that James Nolan often altered the form of the poem, changing where lines began and ended, changing punctuation, and even adding additional stanza breaks where there were none. I understand that sometimes a translation can't be word for word in order to capture the spirit of the poetic language, but these changes to layout were distracting, unnecessary, and unfaithful to Neruda's work.

TLDR: excellent poetry, frustrating translation.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Death is petrifying. Flesh turns to bone turns to stone. But death is patient, as is stone. Both know the game is long, and both slowly wear down to nothing, to nothing.

"Dust to dust" implies movement and chaos: a conspiracy of disparate particles coming together and dissolution as they depart. In contrast, Neruda shows faith in coherence and discrete oneness. Rather than the oblivion of Sheol where not even God can hear you, Neruda's petrifaction seems hopefully permanent, a testament to the future through the shape of accumulated eons. Stone outlives even the dreaded worm: "The sleek stone does not know / the passing pace of the worm." Stone instead holds promise of a future return, an exploration of the classic "womb/tomb" parallel:

Leave me an underground, a labyrinth
to resort to later when, without eyes,
without touch, in the emptiness,
I might want to come back to life
or to mute rock or the hand of the shadow.


For Neruda, as with all writers, death coalesces around a body (of work): a series of books, poems, songs, things that will live on, albeit in a static, deathly-stable way. Even within the same language, eventually they'll need translation, re-translation, as unknowable futures decode them. Luckily for us, the present decodes the present, as James Nolan so generously did for us in this edition. However, I dare say he takes unnecessary liberty with the source. On opposing pages, we see the original Spanish and the newly translated English. Neruda's grammar and lineation is mercifully simple, so any differences stand out starkly. I understand small changes like placing adjectives before the nouns (in the English) as opposed to their opposite original, but I have a harder time understanding adding new blank lines, indention, and altering line endings. The most jarring example is the entirety of "IV," especially the concluding lines:

ojo inmovil del agua,
gota de Dios, victoria
del frio, torre verde.


Is rendered thus, with totally new line endings which destroy the original enjambment:

fixed stare of water,
drop of God,
victory of the cold

green tower.


The final line is inexplicably separated from its neighbors, which is alarming. I'm not even close to fluent in Spanish, but I guess one day I will be fluent in stone, like Neruda now is, and like the translator soon will be. Neruda was also fluent in the symbolistic inheritance from his compatriots in modern art. However, here Neruda's symbolism is considerably narrowed to stone and rock, thus carving for itself a comprehensible niche in what sometimes threatens to be an inescapable cave. In the hands of an adept artist, such narrowness forces depth rather than mere limitation. Neruda finds in these precious and not-so-precious stones some of his favorite compatriots, often discovering a sublimity as abstract as the modern artists he so admired and emulated. Their splatterings of paint evoke the same arbitrary patterns in layers of sediment. Like the verve of a Pollack, Neruda sounds honored to someday join their ranks, and what could have been a fatalistic, nihilistic obsession with death turns into a surprisingly hopeful collection.

As you could probably tell, I prefer the most literal of translations, and interestingly this is what Neruda also yearns for. Fossilization is as literal as one can get, though it's not without its own strange humor: an implicit challenge to be unearthed, these relics buried like seeds, these coded messages to the future.

Break yourself open at the breaking point,
you, body of the one I love,
into another genesis, into the cataclysm,
into obsidian, into agate, into sapphire,
into granite whipped
by the salty wind of Antofagasta.


We are our geography, so it turns out.

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

To harden the earth
the rocks took charge:
instantly
they grew wings:
the rocks
that soared:
the survivors
flew up
the lightning bolt,
screamed in the night,
a watermark,
a violet sword,
a meteor.

The succulent
sky
had not only clouds,
not only space smelling of oxygen,
but an earthly stone
flashing here and there
changed into a dove,
changed into a bell,
into immensity, into a piercing
wind:

into a phosphorescent arrow,
into salt of the sky.

- I, pg. 3

* * *

Oh emotion plunged
deep into substance,
dark wall that protects
the sapphire spire:
thick rinds of stones
basic to softness and strength,
to the burning secret
and the hard shell of night,
eyes inside,
inside
the encrusted radiance,
waiting quietly
as a prophecy
that a lucid stroke could unearth.
Oh dazzling transparency,
orange of petrified light,
light's full force

- VII, pg. 15

* * *

I want the light
locked inside to awaken:
crystalline flower,
wake as I do:

eyelids raise the curtain
of endless earthen time
until deeply buried eyes
flash clear enough again
to see their own clarity.

- XII, pg. 25

* * *

Here as proof is the tree
in pure rock, in the sturdy beauty
forged by a hundred million years.
Agate and carnelian and sparkle
replace sap and wood
until the giant's trunk
shed its damp rot
and a statue just like it solidified:
the living leaves
fell apart
and when its straightness was toppled,
the forest burned, an igneous dustcloud,
an astral ash wrapped it up
until time and lava awarded it
the prize of transparent stone.

- XVI, pg. 35

* * *

Slate clouds, bitter clouds
let black threads dangle
over the winter buildings:
rain of stone, rain:

The dense city crowd
doesn't know that strands
of stones dropped straight
to the heart of rock city.

Clouds unload winter stones
sack by sack and black
water falls from above,
a black was over the city.

- XXI, pg. 45

* * *

Leave me an underground, a labyrinth
to resort to later when, without eyes,
without touch, in the emptiness,
I might want to come back to life
or to mute rock or the hand of the shadow.

I know how - not you, anyone, or anything else -
to put myself in this place, on this path
but what will I do with these pitiful desires
since they didn't work out on the outside
of the usual life,
and what if I don't seek, personally, to live on
but to die on, to be part
of a metallic and dormant state,
of passionate beginnings.

- XXVI, pg. 57

* * *

I'm coming, I'm coming, wait up, stones!

Sometimes, some tone or season,
we are able to be together, or to be one,
to live, to die in this great hush
of hardness, mother of all glow.

Sometimes flowing
through volcano's fire or river's arbor
or fresh air's faithful circulars
or stuck trek through the snow
or caked dust in the desert
regions, metallic
dustcloud,
or even farther, the polar father of stone,
icy sapphire,
Antarctica:
in this point or port or birth or death
we shall be stone, borderless night,
unbending love, unending brilliance,
eternal light, buried fire,
pride condemned to its intensity:

the only star that is ours.

- XXX, pg. 67

[Patricia N. McLaughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this bilingual collection, the poet explores the nature of life and death in these thirty-one love songs to the Earth, particularly the elementals. Oh, to be able to read these gems in the original Spanish! Translator James Nolan’s introductory essay offers a brief bio of the poet’s life, an insightful analysis of the images, and a thoughtful discussion of the challenges of rendering Neruda’s lyricism into the pedestrian rhythms of English.

“Yo quiero que despierte
[I want the light]
la luz encarcelada:
[locked inside me to awaken]
flor mineral, acude
[crystalline flower,]
a mi conducta:
[wake as I do:]

los parpados levantan la cortina
[eyelids raise the curtain]
del largo tempo espeso
[of endless earthen time]
hasta que aquellos ojos enterrados
[until deeply buried eyes]
vuelvan a ser y ver su transparencia.”
[flash clear enough again to see their own clarity.]
—XII,” p. 33


“Entre en la gruta de las amatistas:
[I entered the amethyst grotto:]
deje mi sangre entre espinas moradas:
[I left my blood among purple thorns:]
cambie de piel, de vino, de criterio:
[I changed skin, wine, outlook:]
desde entonces me duelen las violetas.
[ever since, violets hurt me.]”
—“XXII,” p. 55


Favorite Poems:
“II” [“Quartz opens its eyes in the snow”]
“VII” [“Oh emotion plunged”]
“VIII” [“Long lips of marine agate”]
“X” [“I invite you to topaz”]
“XII” [“I want the light”]
“XV” [“You should comb over the shore”]
“XVII” [“But man cannot master this lesson”]
“XIX” [“Silence is intensified”]
“XXII” [“I entered the amethyst grotto”]
“XXIII” [“I am this naked”]
“XXVI”[“Leave me an underground, a labyrinth”]
“XXIX”[“We must speak clearly of the clear stones”]
“XXX” [“Im coming, I’m coming, wait up, stones!”]

[DKSDGM · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pablo Neruda wrote about emotions and he did so brilliantly. An adventurer and lover of nature, in this volume he takes emotions and links them to the tangible ageless substances our planet is made of. He teaches that we are not separate from the world we move through -

when you touch topaz
topaz touches you.

What I took from this book: as fragile and unstable and vulnerable as my emotions may make me feel, I come from and remain a part of the ageless rock. But I'm not just any stone buried deep below the ground or bound to a cliff-face. I fly high above those restrictions with a world of boundless possibilities laid out at my feet. Even the familiar paths I've tread before can become startlingly new (poem XXIV). I am a stone of the sky.

[Reed · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like the concept of using constraints as a catalyst for creativity. In this short collection of 30 poems, Neruda uses stones as his constraint and thus running thread. The stones carry varied meanings throughout the collection: sometimes hard, sometimes worn, sometimes beautiful. His writing can be gorgeous. I especially liked his storytelling in the prose-like poem V and poem XXIV. Poem XIV beautifully compares life to the travails of a volcanic rock-- lovely.

On the other hand, a good chunk of these poems string together beautiful words in an indecipherable manner. Which lessens the impact of the poems....and my rating.

[Mohammad Mallaki · Rating 3 out of 5]

خلاصه بگم: مجموعهٔ شعر کوتاه و زیبایی در مدح زمین، سنگ‌ها، خاک (که هم زادگاه آدمی‌است، هم سرآغاز وجودش).
تابه‌حال هیچ شعری در این زمینه نخونده بودم، شعری که در وصف و ستایش زیباییِ‌ سنگ‌ها و کانی‌ها و اشکال هندسیِ بلورهای اونها باشه! البته شاعر با نگاهی عمیق‌تر به این طبیعت بی‌جان، جان می‌بخشه و به سرنوشت انسان گره می‌زنه.

« ...
سنگِ سوده گم می‌کند نشانِ تیزه‌های فانیِ خود را
وانگاه به هیأت یک تخم‌مرغ کیهانی
در ژرفنای رود
سُر می‌خورد میان سنگ‌های دگر
غلتان به راه خود
از یاد برده نیاکانِ خویش را
در دوردستِ ریزش دوزخ،

این‌سان، هموارِ آسمان
در‌می‌رسد به دریا:
کامل، بسوده،
نامی، بدیع:
ناب.»

[Bahman Bahman · Rating 2 out of 5]

پابلو نرودا نام مستعار «ريكاردو نفتالی ريس باسوآلت»، شاعر، نویسنده، دیپلمات و برنده جایزه ادبی نوبل است که در سال 1904 میلادی در کشور شیلی به دنیا آمد.

او از دوره نوجوانی به عنوان شاعر شناخته شد و در طول عمر خود به کشورهای زیادی سفر کرد. او یکی از دوستان میگل آنخل استوریاس، شاعر، نویسنده و برنده جایزه ادبی نوبل اهل کشور گواتمالا بود و به دلیل شباهتش به او، با استفاده از گذرنامه‌اش به بسیاری از کشورها سفر کرد.

در یکی از شعرهای این مجموعه آمده است:
انسان را اما توان آموختن این درس نیست، درس سنگ: فرو می‌غلتد و تكه‌تكه می‌شود و كلام و آوای‌اش شرحه شرحه می‌گردد.

[Grant · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lingering day was enveloped by water, by fire, by smoke, by silence, by gold, by silver, by ashes, by passing and there it lay scattered, the longest of days: the tree tumbled whole and calcified, one century then another hid it away until a broad slab of stone forever replaced the rustling of its leaves

[Navya · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Everything/ Is racing toward hardness"

I thought the main theme (the poems in the collection are about and/or address stones, rocks and gems) would be odd, but Neruda most definitely worked his magic. The poems are lyrical and almost all of them made me contemplative.

[sweet orange books]

Borrowed this book to read something from a South American author for the Spring bingo, and because Neruda was recommended to me. I read a little bit of it in the car while waiting for my Ralph's order to arrive.

Started reading and reviewed: 2022-06-11

[Leonard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice selection of untitled poems by the master himself.

[Jbondandrews · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely collection of poems

[Julie Bergley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was gorgeous. I loved the overall theme. I do wish I was able to appreciate the original poems though. I feel like they'd be more beautiful in Spanish.

[Jorge Martinez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neruda, how can your majestic simplicity be able to define such intricacy? When it is love, or things of love, I can think of no other who can best express it for me. Man gets such a rise from your enchanted words that at times I envy your tongue because I wished that I would have been able to drip my ink upon paper so marvelously. And I sit here, with your cup of words in front me in which I have drank from its rim so abundantly. You are a seer and a seer you will remain until man has lost its ability to exist, and from there we will be just as the stones in the sky, each bearing our wings.

Unlike Neruda’s love poems, stones in the sky gives off a bit of a morbid overtone, as if it was written by a man who has welcomed death and I do understand that it was written before his passing.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Neruda writes with such clarity and beauty even as he was dying of cancer. This bilingual edition ia a wonderful, reflection of his later years. He addresses the earth through various stones, minerals, and the passaing of time through geology. Some of lines are mystical, even transcedent and deep; others are harmonious and elegant. I loved every one of the thirty poems here.

The translation by James Nolan fits the Spanish elegantly.

[Celeste · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simple, beautiful poetry filled with vivid imagery.

[Bernadette · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://rantsravesreviews.homestead.co...

[Janice · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another Neruda voyage of self discovery--reading it is an adventure into your own thoughts and understanding through nature. It's another book that takes time to ponder, but well worth it.

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ay, Neruda, como te quiero. The prose poem about Colombia in the middle of the volume knocked me flat. (Will it do the same to my students when we discuss it in April?)

[Cassio Moreno · Rating 2 out of 5]

Um monte de sentimentos, escrito integralmente sobre metáforas sobre pedras preciosas, mas um livro que sinceramente eu nao voltaria a ler.

[A. Anupama · Rating 5 out of 5]

The stones, like a kaleidoscope for consciousness. Beautiful collection.

[Heather Mattern · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a lover of stones, I truly felt these poems! "I'm coming, Im coming, wait up, stones!"