Step Four

I have been looking through the poems in Neruda's Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, and I have decided that I will be using two (possibly three) poems for my presentation:

1. Poem V
2. Poem XIII
3. Poem XX (possibly)

My analysis on V is the strongest right now, but I haven't gone in depth in the other two as much or spent as much time on them. I also think that the message in V is very straightforward and  there is just tons of evidence that I will end up using.

Here is what I have so far:

• "So that you will hear me / my words / sometimes grow thin / as the tracks of the gulls on the beaches." - He is saying that in order for her to "hear" him, he will use few words (or none at all)
• "Necklace, [... ] / for your hands" & "I am making them into an endless necklace for your white hands" - He talks about making his words into a necklace (which would be worn around a neck) for her to wear around her hands (which more resembles a bracelet). Something about a misinterpretation.
• "I watch my words from a long way off" - he feels a distance between himself and his words. He acknowleges the difference between what he feels inside and what he is able to communicate through speech.
• "You listen to other voices in my painful voice" - The idea of selective hearing, she is hearing a message that is different from what he was trying to deliver. Words/Voices are inadequate at relaying the true meaning that comes from within the human mind.
• "My words become stained with your love." Perhaps this has something to do again with her hearing what she wants to hear, rather than what he is really saying. Somehow, his words are being changed (in a negative way).

There are also some things that confuse me that could help me if I figured them out:

• What is the significance of grapes? What to they simbolize? Do they have to do with what I am talking about? Do they argue against it?
• What is the "drunken bell" in line 5? Why is it on the same line as the necklace? Does it hurt my analysis if I neglect to mention it? Would it help me if I did?
• Why does Neruda repeat the phrase "You ______ everything, you ______ everything." Could I use that to my advantage?

And here is what I have for Poem XIII:

• "Between the lips and the voice something goes dying." - Again, we have a very clear indication that he is saying  that his words do not convey his true meaning. Perhaps voices have a mind of their own?
• "The way nets cannot hold water." - Continues the idea above. His words are not strong enough to capture the essence of his emotions. They have holes; his words cannot carry/hold on to his message.
• "Something climbs to my ravenous mouth." - This makes me think of an intruder of some kind. If he is referring to the voices, and calling them "something," this makes them seem like something unknown to him. They are not under his control.
• "Oh to be able to celebrate you with all the words of joy." - He separates the word joy from the meaning  that it is assigned to. He distinguishes the difference between what we feel inside and the word that we use to describe it. He believes that this difference is huge and that it affects how we communicate with others.

Again, this analysis is a bit shorter, but it is only from one stanza. These words just jumped out at me from when we read it in class awhile ago and I saw how these two poems related to each other. I will for sure use these two poems, and maybe the other one once I look at it some more.