TwilightAbout this book
My poems here are inspired by corresponding poems by Pablo Neruda, from his first book, Crepusculario, written between 1920 and 1923.
If you want to understand the originals, they are represented elsewhere by translations that adhere to the originals as closely as possible, which has not been my intention here. I don’t understand Spanish well, so I’ve begun with literal translations. I have not tried to reproduce Neruda’s rhythms or rhymes. Nevertheless, a bad translation isn’t necessarily a bad poem; it might just be an artifact of one way to listen.
If the idea of “bad translation” doesn’t feel right to you, then think of riffs of the same tunes but in different keys. Regardless of the language being used, to some degree, an original poem by Pablo Neruda and the poem that I’ve written to match it share some of the same inspirations.
I’ve tried to match the Spanish text with the 1923 edition printed in Spain, edited by Ricardo Lyon in Santiago, Chile. ISBN 84-89691-85-1.
The cover is my photo of Carolabrücke from the Elbe river in Dresden. On the left, above the bridge, is the top of the dome of Frauenkirche.
How this book is organized
The book has three pages for each poem and its translations. Language codes label the links in the header. Es is the language code for Spanish.
- En: My poem (in English)
- Es+literal: The original poem by Neruda, with a literal translation on its right
- En+Es: My poem, with the original poem on its right
There are also two contents pages. The main contents page lists poems by Tom Sharp first. The second, Crepusculario, by Pablo Neruda, lists the poems by Pablo Neruda.
Links and shortcuts
In any page, you can click on or touch links to jump around in this book.
- Each entry in the contents links to the poem.
- The title for a poem links back to the contents, highlighting the entry for the poem.
- Words in the headers and footers link to the index, the contents, a listing of books by the author, to this page, and to the previous and next poems in the book.
You may find the following keyboard equivalents to be convenient. Here I use the symbol ⌥ for the option key on Mac/OS or the alt key on Windows, ⇧ for the shift key, and ⏎ for the return (enter) key. Arrow keys are ◄ (left), ► (right), ▲ (up), and ▼ (down).
| Context | Keys | Jump to / Behavior |
|---|---|---|
| cover | ⌥ ◄ | Books by Tom Sharp |
| ⌥ ▲ | About Tom Sharp | |
| ⌥ ► | about this book (this page) | |
| ⌥ ▼ | contents | |
| ⇧ ⌥ ▼ | contents | |
| contents | ⇧ ⌥ ▲ | cover |
| ⌥ ▼ | select the next item in the contents | |
| ⌥ ▲ | select the previous item in the contents | |
| ⌥ ► | open the selected page | |
| ⌥ ⏎ | open the selected page | |
| poem | ⇧ ⌥ ▲ | contents |
| ⌥ ◄ | contents | |
| ⌥ ▲ | open the previous page | |
| ⌥ ► | open the original + literal translation, translation + original, or translation in rotation | |
| ⌥ ▼ | open the next page |
The poet
Tom Sharp is a Native American of Aleut heritage, a member of Seldovia Village Tribe. He is the author of numerous books, including Spectacles: A Sampler of Poems and Prose, Taurean Horn Press (ISBN 0-931552-10-9), a novel, Hans and the Clock (ISBN 979-8580172484), The book of science, SciFi (ISBN 979-8694935210), Things People Do (ISBN 979-8687425568), The book of beliefs (ISBN 979-8683553593), The I Ching (ISBN 979-8573510620), Images (ISBN 979-8577560515), Aleut Artifacts (ISBN 979-8575608998), Aleut Words (ISBN 979-8582103394), and First Nations (ISBN 979-8682924769).
You may email tom/AT/liztomsharp/DOT/-c-o-m-/ to share comments on this work.
