Pablo Neruda — Master of the Motif
A short ode to a great poet
I personally found trying to get into poetry quite difficult. My family have no interest in the arts, so I had no one to ask for recommendations when I really loved the poetry I had studied in school. When the most popular modern poets failed to interest me, I primarily looked to Shakespeare but I have always thought of him as more of a dramatist than a poet (in spite of his sonnets) and was generally looking for something darker.
Oddly, this came to me through hip-hop for quite some time. Not all hip-hop, granted, but a few favourite artists I discovered in 2019 really helped me to first get inspired to write my own poetry. And some forum searching eventually led me to GoodReads, which led me to simply filter the website by the highest rated poetry and go down the list looking for one that interested me.
Seeing as I was still at a stage of only wanting to dip my toes, Pablo Neruda’s 20 Love Poems and a Song of Sorrow stood out — short, simple and the reviews were intensely positive, it seemed a perfect start. But nothing could fully prepare me for the book and, primarily, its consistent mention of water. This was the first time I took notice of a written motif — of course, motifs are everywhere in music lyrics as songs have a tendency to run in circles, but Neruda’s poetry always came…
