In the introduction to this bilingual volume, the translator reminds us:
Neruda spent the last forty years of his life making himself dangerous
with his poetry... He came to see poetry as a moral act, with personal
and communal responsibilities. But here, Neruda is at his playful and
irreverent best. Whether writing a celebration, allegory, lament or
self-parody, the poet declares the strong sense of an improvisational
spirit. Highlighted as Essential by Library Journal.