New Directions celebrates the Pablo Neruda Centennial.

"Laughter is the language of the soul," Pablo Neruda said. Among the most lasting voices of the most tumultuous (in his own words, "the saddest") century, a witness and a chronicler of its most decisive events, he is the author of more than thirty-five books of poetry and one of Latin America's most revered writers, the emblem of the engaged poet, an artist whose heart, always with the people, is literally consumed by passion. His work, oscillating from epic meditations on politics and history to intimate reflections on animals, food, and everyday objects, is filled with humor and affection. This bilingual selection of more than fifty of Neruda's best poems, edited and with an introduction by the distinguished Latin American scholar Ilan Stavans and brilliantly translated by an array of well-known poets, also includes some poems previously unavailable in English. I Explain a Few Things distills the poet's brilliance to its most essential and illuminates Neruda's commitment to using the pen as a calibrator for his age.

A collection of poems by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda.

An important collection that includes some of the Nobel Prize winner's own favorite poems."The Sea""A single entity, but no blood.""A single caress, death or a rose.""The sea comes in and puts our lives together""and attacks alone and spreads itself and sing""sin nights and days and men and living creatures.""Its essence-fire and cold; movement, movement."Pablo Neruda himself regarded "Fully Empowered" -- which first appeared in Spanish in 1962 under the title Plenos Poderes -- as a particular favorite, in part because it came out of a most fruitful period in his life. These thirty-six poems vary from short, intense lyrics to characteristic Neruda odes to magnificent meditations on the office of poet, including poems that would undoubtedly claim a place in any selection of Neruda's greatest work. "The People" ("El Pueblo"), about the state of the working man in Chile's past and present, and the most celebrated of Neruda's later poems, completes this reflective, graceful collection.

This superb bilingual anthology highlights the posthumous legacy of Pablo Neruda, the great Chilean poet and Nobel laureate, who left a vast body of unpublished work when he died in 1973. Ben Belitt, a distinguished poet in his own right, is widely regarded as the leading translator of Neruda into English. Here he has given us a Neruda as fecund and engaged as ever, ceaselessly spinning the strands of his great, seamless life's work.

"This book is an overwhelming feast, a treasure, and more than enough proof that Sze is a major poet." —NPR National Book Award winner Arthur Sze is a master poet, and The Glass Constellation is a triumph spanning five decades, including ten poetry collections and twenty-six new poems. Sze began his career writing compressed, lyrical poems influenced by classical Chinese poetry; he later made a leap into powerful polysemous sequences, honing a distinct stylistic signature that harnesses luminous particulars, and is sharply focused, emotionally resonant, and structurally complex. Fusing elements of Chinese, Japanese, Native American, and various Western experimental traditions—employing startling juxtapositions that are always on target, deeply informed by concern for our endangered planet and troubled species—Arthur Sze presents experience in all its multiplicities, in singular book after book. This collection is an invitation to immerse in a visionary body of work, mapping the evolution of one of our finest American poets.