Fully Empowered
by Pablo Neruda
Category: Chilean poetry

Fully Empowered was one of Neruda's favourites 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 but 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 mediations 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.