How to Critically appreciate “Tonight I can write” by Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda included "Tonight I can write the saddest lines," or "Poem 20," in his collection Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. First published in 1924, when Neruda was just 19 years old, the collection charts the course of love, lust, and heartbreak. In this particular poem the speaker confronts the loneliness, pain, and confusion of a break-up. Without his beloved by his side, the starry night seems cold and foreboding to the speaker, who struggles to accept that a love that once felt endless love has, in fact, ended for good—leaving the speaker with no company apart from the painful memory of what he's lost. “Tonight I Can Write” is a poem about memories of a lost love and the pain they can cause. Throughout the poem the speaker recalls the details of a relationship that is now broken. He continually juxtaposes images of the passion he felt for the woman he loved with the loneliness he experiences in the present. He is now at some distance from the relationship and so acknowledges, “tonight I can write the saddest lines,” suggesting that the pain he suffered after losing his lover had previously prevented any reminiscences or descriptions of it. While the pain he experienced had blocked his creative energies in the past, he is now able to write about their relationship and find some comfort in “the verse [that] falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.” Throughout the poem, the speaker expresses his great love for a woman with whom he had a passionate romance. He remembers physical details: “her great still eyes,” “her voice, her bright body,” “her infinite eyes.” He also remembers kissing her “again and again under the endless sky” admitting “how I loved her.” His love for her is still evident even though he states twice “I no longer love her.” He’s in a state of mind that allows him to write moving lines, of which he gives several examples. He can write this way because he has a love affair on his mind while also worrying about his newfound loneliness. In conclusion, the speaker, who is likely the poet himself, says that this is the “last poem that” he’s going to “write for her”. Neruda engages with themes of love, love lost, and solitude. He expresses his loneliness through poetic language and poignant images. Neruda’s speaker also discusses change, the transformation of his relationship with “her” and how he feels now. It seems to him that she will “be someone else’s” and that he has lost her. But, readers should not, it is only because of this sad state of mind that he’s able to write this poem. He remembers “nights like this” when he held her and now he’s “lost without her”. Neruda makes use of several literary devices in ‘Tonight I Can Write’. These include but are not limited to imagery, alliteration, and juxtaposition. The poem consists of night imagery, and the alliteration of the consonant sound “s” all through the lines reflect the quiet night. The night could be both treacherous and beautiful, and this could also reflect the persona’s relationship. Pablo Neruda employs vivid nature imagery to express the loss of his love in this poem – probably the last time he is writing about the woman he once loved and lost. Pablo Neruda shows us the pain and suffering a lover experiences when he separates from his other half. The simple language makes the general populace empathise more with the speaker of the poem. This poem is the penultimate one of the collection.