A Lemon (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto
- First Published: 1957
- Type of Work: Ode
- Genres: Free verse, Poetry, Ode
- Subjects: Creation myth, Flowers, Edible plants, Earth, Fruit, Smell, Odors, Lemons
The Poem
“A Lemon” is an ode (an ode was originally a vehicle of praise, either civic or lyrical in nature, intended to be sung in public) written in highly flexible free verse and composed of four stanzas. Pablo Neruda wrote three volumes of what he called “odas elementales” (“elementary odes”), which were translated together into English as The Elementary Odes of Pablo Neruda in 1961. As in all those poems, the subject matter is a seemingly “unpoetic,” simple, ordinary object.
The poem opens with a wild and sensuous image of “lemon flowers/...
[The entire page is 1337 words long]
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