Happy Birthday, Pablo Neruda

   Pablo Neruda is one of my favorite poets. We can never forget 20 love poems and a song of despair. Actually, we might have studied at school, mainly, the poem number 20:

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry

and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.

I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.

How could one not love her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.

And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.

The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.

My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer

My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.

We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.

My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.

Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms

my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer

and these the last verses that I write for her.

   Pablo Neruda had several houses. One of them is located in Valparaiso, Chile. It is called La Sebastiana and I immediately fell in love with that building when I met it, with its boat shape, its view to the sea from a high point on the hills, the interior decoration, the stories in the air. For example, inside the house there are two portraits faced, of a woman and a man, and Pablo Neruda used to play with it, imagining they were secret lovers. Sadly, you weren't supposed to take pictures there.

   Luckily, Google has its resources

Special thanks to: blogdepasopor.blogspot.com

Special thanks to: livecolorful.com

Special thanks to: enviajes.cl

- Have you ever read to Pablo Neruda?

- Don't you think he is a genius?

See you soon! And Happy Birthday, Pablo Neruda! 

No One Sleeps, for rainy nigths

   Good evening everyone! Always it's special to listen to opera. Operas are perfect plays and tell stories in a different way, a beautiful one. And among all of them, this one.

   Nessun Dorma is part of the opera Turandot, by Giacomo Puccini. It is about a Chinese princess, who decapitated all her suitors who could not answer properly to her riddles, until it appeared a foreigner that not only guessed, but made her divine his name.

   Why did I wanted to write about Nessun Dorma? Yesterday I woke up musical, feeling like conveying opera. Besides, it was Jonas Kauffman's birthday; he is a German tenor who made a version of this song. After watching his video, it came on the list maestre Pavarotti's. From that moment on, I couldn't take that song out of my mind. What is more, this is the track Paul Potts sang when he presented on Britain's Got Talent.

   Without any other preamble, I leave here these beautiful interpretations, for you to relax and sleep well. It's better you listen than to speak or, in this case, read. Enjoy! :)

 





 And the Plus :) 

 

   I also leave you the link to Turandot complete, in case you want to watch it.

   And the lyrics in English of Nessun Dorma.

No one sleeps!

No one sleeps!

Even you, oh princess,

in your cold room,

look at the stars 

that tremble with love

and hope!

But my mystery

it is locked in me.

And my name,

no one will know!

No, no!

On your mouth

I will say it,

when the light

will shine!

And my kiss will break the silence, 

that makes you mine!

choir:
His name no one will know...
And we shall have, alas, to die, to die...!

Disperse, o night!
Vanish, oh stars!
Vanish, oh stars! 

At daybreak, I will win!

I will win! 

I will win!

Questionsss

   - Do you like Opera?

   - Did you like Nessun Dorma?

   Thank youuuu for being here :)

Poems on the Underground

   Hi everyone! Today it will be a short post because I slept a huge siesta. It's like I still had jet-lagged.

   I wanted to show you a jewel -everything is a jewel to me- I found when I went to take the underground two weekends before I left.

   Poems on the Underground is a project promoted by Transport for London, Arts Council England y The British Council, active since 1986; it started with the idea of the writer from The United States, Judith Chernaik, with the aim of taking the poetry to an audience even wider, and make the journey nicer and more inspiring for them.

   Do you know similar projects in another place to encourage art? I know, for example, in Romania people travel for free in buses if they do it reading.

   That is all for now. Take care and thank you for being here!

Alice & Alice in Wonderland

   Hi everyone! Yesterday –and the day before- I wanted to write but it was my last day in London, and I had to do a lot of things. In the end, I couldn’t do everything I wanted to although I was outside since early in the morning until late at night. But it was worth every single second.

   And yesterday, well, I had to fly and I was supposed to be comfortable in the hotel, writing during the stop, but I had to spend the night inside the airport, so I continued there. I won’t tell the details of the story, but when I arrived last night, I was sooooo tired that I just could hug my bed.

  

   But let’s go better to today’post –yesterday’and the day before’-

  

  Alice Through the Looking Glass is still playing in the cinemas. It is a success; everyone knows it. I myself rejected to watch the first one, but when I did it, the result was I loved it.

  

  However, how many viewers of both movies in the entire world know the origin is in the books with the same title? And how many know it all began in July 4^th, 1862?

  

   That day, the writer Lewis Carroll –whose real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodson-, told a tale to Alice Liddell - Alice Pleasance Liddell Hargreaves Taylor- when she was a little girl; she, moved and eager of hearing more, asked Lewis to write it down.

Alice, Alice and Lewis

   It can be assumed that the character Alice is inspired in the little Alice, who shares at least the name. However, the author has always denied it and there is not concrete evidence to corroborate it, although it is true Lewis and little Alice had a close relationship, or that it was he wanted.

  

   In fact, at the end of Alice Through the Looking Glass, there is a poem that forms the name of Alice Pleasance Lidell if the initials of each line are put together. This is, nevertheless, just a theory.

  

But on the other hand, Lewis Carroll was also a photographer, and one of the people more portrayed by him was Alice, among other little girls. Actually, it has been kept a letter from her parents asking Lewis not to get close to Alice any more.

The other side of the story

   The idea I had when I started writing this post it that sometimes, stories can be very successful, blockbusters, bestsellers. But beyond every one of them, there is the author’s story, which is not always that fairy tale we see, and which is, however, crying aloud for being discovered.

  

Questionssssss

-   Have you ever watched the movies or read the books?

-  When you read or see a work of art, a movie, or any artistic expression, do you want to know what happened to the author in that moment?

That is all for today. Thank you for being here! I leave you with the trailers of the movies. :)

A beautiful jewel in Waterloo

   Hi again everyone. I'm in London now, not for a lot of time actually, but currently here for now. And as I am here, I wanted to talk about a little secret. The daily London book fair, or The Southbank Centre Book Market.

   It was hard at the beginning to find it, because when I looked it up on Google Maps, it appears in another place, so when I got off the bridge, I turned left. What a mistake! I walked a lot more and worse, I was completely starving.

It's true I can be disoriented sometimes.

   But in the end, after a lot of perseverance, I finally found it under the Waterloo bridge. Literally, under the bridge, next to the river Thames. 

   There, there are second hand books, quite cheap really. Some of them are great sagas and bestsellers, with a cost of two or three pounds.

   However, you can find antiques books as well, although the price could be a bit higher, not as higher as in other bookshops, though.

   Of course, there is also a place for rare books, not to say bizarre, that only could appear here.

   So, you already know now. If you ever come here, and you love books, you have to walk around this book market under the Waterloo bridge.

   Anyway, my favorite secret is another bookshop I have found, but I will talk about this one in another post, beside the other beautiful London bookshops.

Questionsss.
- Do you know any other book fair that it's hidden, waiting to be discovered?

Take care, and see you next time! Thank you for being here! :)

I am Looking for a Word - Wisława Szymborska

   Hi everyone! Today, I dedicate this post to Wisława Szymborska, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1996.

   This day, but in 1923, she was born, poetess, essayist, and Polish translator. Her first poem was published in 1945, while she studied at university, in a local newspaper in Cracovia, letting loose her great talent for letters. Its title was I am Looking for a Word (Szukam słowa).

   Before reading it, I recommend you to click the video below and listen to this great Beethoven's melody (my favourite) and then read the poem with this song playing at the bottom. At the end, you will see why.

   Please note that as I couldn’t find a proper English translation of the poem, I’ve translated it from Spanish. It’s a primitive translation, so it could have a lot of mistakes:

   The Sweden Academy said about her, quite rightly, "she is like the Mozart of poetry, with something of the fury of Beethoven".

 

Questionsss: 

- Have you heard before about Wisława Szymborska?

- Did you like this poem?

   I enjoyed a lot writing this post. I hope you had liked it as well.

   Take care everyone and see you next time!