Vincent Cuellar - The Poet's Obligation and Ingenium 4/8/13

The Poet's Obligation

Pablo Neruda

To whoever is not listening to the sea
this Friday morning, to who ever is cooped up
in house or office, factory or woman
or street or mine or dry prison cell,
to him I come, and without speaking or looking
I arrive and open the door of his prison,
and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,
a long rumble of thunder adds itself
to the weigh of the planet and the foam,
the groaning rivers of the ocean rise,
the star vibrates quickly in its corona
and the sea beats, dies, and goes on beating.

So. Drawn on by my destiny,
I ceaselessly must listen to and keep
the sea's lamenting in my consciousness,
I must feel the crash of the hard water
and gather it up in a perpetual cup
so that, wherever those in prison may be,
wherever they suffer the sentence of the autumn,
I may be present with an errant wave,
I may move in and out of the windows,
and hearing me, eyes may lift themselves,
asking "How can I reach the sea?"
And I will pass to them, saying nothing,
the starry echoes of the wave,
a breaking up of foam and quicksand,
a rustling of salt withdrawing itself,
the gray cry of sea birds on the coast.

So, though me, freedom and the sea
will call in answer to the shrouded heart.

This is the poem I brought into class to read on the day we were talking about the concept of ingenium. I thought it was interesting because we brought up the point that a lot of artists can be thought of as people who reveal 'truth', and who are able to give us those moments of realization. Dr. Redick used the example of Helen Keller when she first discovered communication as the moment she recognized her humanity and a truly 'beautiful' moment which I think is the sort of effect many artists go for in what they create. In this poem, the Narrator identifies himself as a poet that is there to find those moments in the world around us and try to capture it for those who cannot access it.