Pablo Neruda and his Book of Questions have profoundly impacted me.
I found him this morning, after seeing him in two places yesterday. I think it’s astounding that the poet went to such great lenghts to write 316 answerless questions, in 74 poems, and they are all collected in a book.
And all of this just months before his death. Oh the cruel irony.
Great art shows significance through great effort and great thoughtfulness. Like the temples that are so ornate and symbolic and elaborate, demanding life and effort from the hands of men in order to claim rightful status as Sacred.
Effort implies significance, infuses a task with meaning and purpose. And all of Neruda’s these lines and rhymes of questions show us the significance and the art of question-asking itself.
There’s no doubt that he was making a deliberate statement, a statement that life is filled with unanswerable questions, but we can still ask them. And should. We should search for more. But we should also see the beauty in the questions.
And those 316 were just some of his.
Thank you for writing such a work, Pablo, with your green-inked pen of hope. Thank you.
I love Pablo Neruda …. I was introduced to him during a recent poetry workshop .. really good poetic food for thought …
I had not read any of Pablo Neruda’s work, until your Facebook post today. After reading just a few poems I am really looking forward to his Book of Questions.
We can learn more from questions than from answers.
I also love reading:
“Effort implies significance, infuses a task with meaning and purpose. And all of Neruda’s these lines and rhymes of questions show us the significance and the art of question-asking itself.”
The lyricism in your words demonstrate you have the heart of a poet yourself Mandy.
“We can learn more from questions than from answers.” yes yes yes
Oh, I didn’t know about the green pen. Had to google it. So cool. I love that you say question asking is an art in and of itself.
Reading this made me think of Nor’s Book of Pstorms…and Chrysalis. I think I need to go find this Pablo of whom you speak.
Chrysalis came up last night in my life. Interesting you mention it…