Los versos del Capitán / The Captain’s Verses
Poetry , 1952
Seix Barral
Pages: 125
Neruda finished writing The Captain’s Verses in 1952 while in exile on the island of Capri — the paradisal setting (islands of Procida and Salina) of the Academy-Award-winning film Il Postino. Surrounded by the natural splendor of Capri, Neruda addressed these poems of love, ecstasy, devotion, and fury to his lover, Matilda Urrutia. Later the same year, Neruda published The Captain’s Verses anonymously in an edition of fifty copies, fourteen years before he and Matilde legally married. The first “acknowledged” edition would not appear until 1963. This complete, bilingual collection has become a classic for love struck readers around the world — passionate, sensuous, and burning with all the erotic energy of a new love.