A few days ago I received a copy of the poster for Bogota’s Book Fair (see above), with Pablo Neruda’s beautiful poem “Queda Prohibido”. I have taken the liberty to (loosely) translate into english for your reading pleasure; I hope you will enjoy it.
It is now Forbidden
by Pablo Neruda
It is now forbidden
to cry without learning;
to wake up one day
and no longer have dreams;
to become afraid
of your own memories…
It is now forbidden
to not smile
in the face of adversity;
to stop fighting
for those who you love;
to abandon it all
because of your fears;
or to give up in making
your own dreams come true.
It is now forbidden
to pretend we don’t need
understanding each other;
to place less value
in the lives of others;
to ignore each of us
has a unique path to joy…
It is now forbidden
to give up on happiness,
to abandon optimism,
to quit improving ourselves;
to believe the world
will be a better place without you.
For more poetry, visit the following links:
- Tomorrow — a poem inspired by Bradley Trevor Grieves book by the same name
- Reflections of a Peaceful Warrior — a poem inspired in a talk given by Dan Millman in Sydney (April ‘08)
- Loneliness — poetry in the Zen tradition
- Samsara — another Zen poem that explains the concept of Samsara
- Que es poesia? — a liberal translation into english of Gustavo Adolfo Becker’s famous poem
- Joy — An uplifting poem about the nature of happiness
- Unusual times — a poem reflecting on the nature of changing and unusual times
or you can visit The crazy Colombian’s new book Zen and the art of photographic story-telling
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A great poem, and very faithful to the essence of Neruda’s ideas. But I wonder about the “now.” If it is forbidden now, what was going on before? How did the change come about? Who/what brought it about? Who/what forbids? If you really like Neruda, check out Red Poppy at http://www.redpoppy.net. It’s a nonprofit set up to create a documentary about him, publish his biography, and translate his works into English.
DIEGO’s RESPONSE:
HI Katia; I am happy you enjoyed the poem. I will visit the site, and see if I can help with the project. Thanks for sharing it here
Great poem.. Great translation. And by the way, great website!. I ran into it today as I got a photo of the poster and wanted to do some research about it. I’m a very skeptical person and like to make sure what I’m told is the truth.
By the way, I was sent the poster as the one used for the “Feria del Libro de Madrid”.
After all my research, I’ve c0me to the conclusion that this poem was not written by Pablo Neruda. I’m a Neruda fan and even though the poem is really good, there was something that didn’t seem right. Don’t ask me why because I don’t know.
Anyway, I found several websites where they claim the poem was a small part of a longer poem written by a young Spanish (Basque) poet by the name of Alfredo Cuervo Barrero.
This is one of the many websites I visited:
http://www.euroresidentes.com/Poemas/queda-prohibido-alfredo-cuervo.htm
Congratulations on your webpage. Like you, I’m Colombian and live in the USA.
Un abrazo muy colombiano.
DIEGO’s RESPONSE:
Dear Marta, I hope you won’t mind that I am writing in English so others understand what I am saying. I really appreciate your research and comments. I am obviously not as big a fan of Neruda, or I may have done the same level of in-depth research you did. I loved the poem and the poster, and the claim seemed sensible, so I went along with it.
I am very happy you enoyed my web site, and hope you subscribed to it; I only publish once per week, so it should not take much time from your busy life, yet I aim to always deliver something thoughtful, provoking and/or inspiring. Thanks again for dropping by and for your words of encouragement!
Un abrazo my colombiano para ti tambien!