Things I Love . . .

Things I love about Pablo Neruda:

• His penchant for commas

• Endless adjectives

• Sensual metaphors, so sensual I can taste and smell them from the type on the page

• His unapologetic romanticism

• His southern-ness, the ultimate southern-ness of earth and America and fire

• The rush of his words - I find myself tumbling over his sentences, being pushed along until I reach the end and I rush back to reread it - they still rush the second time around, but they sting deeper, more true than before. (Can I say "more true?" I don't like "truer." It just sounds wrong sometimes.)