Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Pablo Neruda

The 20 love poems of the title poignantly describe remembered affairs with two women: a girl from the poet’s native town of Temuco and a classmate at the University of Santiago. The collection begins with intensity, describing sensual passion that slackens into melancholy and detachment in the later verses. The closing poem, “A Song of Despair,” is bitter and hopeless.