Federico Garcia Lorca presenting Pablo Neruda: Madrid, December 1934

American Poetry Review, The, Jul/Aug 2003 by Neruda, Pablo

"I say you are about to hear an authentic poet, one who has forged himself in a world that's not ours, that few people perceive. A poet closer to death than philosophy, to pain than intellect, to blood than ink. A poet filled with mysterious voices that luckily he himself doesn't know the meaning of. A true man who does know that the reed and the swallow are more permanent than the hard cheek on a statue. . . .

He stands up to the world, full of honest terror, and lacks two things so many false poets have lived with-hate and irony. When he's about to condemn and raises his sword, suddenly he finds himself with a wounded dove between his fingers."