Fully Empowered

Fully Empowered was first published in Spanish in 1962 and was one of Neruda’s favorites among his own works, and he specifically asked his finest translator, Alastair Reid, to translate it into English, Neruda loved this collection partly because it grew from the most fruitful period of his own life and also because it was a representative selection of the vast range of his poetry. The thirty-six poems vary from short intense lyrics, characteristic Neruda odes, whimsical addresses to friends, and his magnificent meditations on the role of the poet. Within Fully Empowered are many poems among the greatest of Neruda’s work, including ‘The People’, his most celebrated later poem.