The Ashes

ISSUE: Winter 2009

This is the age of ashes.
Ashes of burned children,
of cold trials of hell,
ashes of eyes that cried
not knowing what was happening
before they were turned to ash,
ashes of gothic virgins
and small wire windows,
ashes of raucous cellars,
crumbling shops,
ashes of famous hands.
And to recount and close
the ashen chapter
in the victory of Berlin,
the ashes of the murderer
in his own ashtray.

Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971. The first complete English translation of Neruda’s World’s End, translated by William O’Daly, is due from Copper Canyon in February. Neruda first appeared in VQR’s pages in our Winter 1961 issue.

William O'Daly

William O’Daly is a poet, translator, and fiction writer. His published works include seven books of the late and posthumous poetry of Chilean Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda (Still Another Day, The Separate Rose, Winter Garden, The Sea and the Bells, The Yellow Heart, The Book of Questions, and The Hands of Day), and a chapbook of his own poems, The Whale in the Web. Another translation of late Neruda, World’s End, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press in spring 2009. With co-author Han-ping Chin, he recently completed a historical novel, This Earthly Life, based on the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

Issue: Winter 2009 Volume 85 # 1

Published: January 1, 2009

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