Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

James Laughlin must be turning in his grave. New Directions, one of the greatest presses in 20th Century literary history, has sunk to the wrong directions now in the 21st: they are letting marketing triumph over literary ethics and literature itself. Neruda never wrote a book named "Love Poems", but as a slick marketing trick they've actually had the gall to rename the title of the book from its original, The Captain's Verses: Love Poems (New Directions Books)--which they themselves still publish! But I guess that doesn't sell as easily on Valentine's Day. Yes, it has all the same poems of the original and the book, itself, is (in my opinion) to some degrees a good, though small book, important in Neruda's oeuvre but honestly only containing a handful of poems that are on the scale of his other great poems, and it is well translated. But to be so deceptive and re-title it as a marketing gimmick? They simply don't have the right to change the title. It's unethical. I'm writing this because I feel this is a literary crime, and to stress that if one wants to have the actual poems included in this book, buy them--from the same publisher--under it's real title, The Captain's Verses, the one Neruda titled. I returned this book to Amazon after I found out what was underneath the false cover. New Directions says in this book that"in later editions, these verses became the most celebrated of the Noble Prize winner's oeuvre" In later editions? Neruda didn't write more than one edition, and ND again plays tricks saying that it "collects Neruda's most passionate verses." It collects some of them, but with The Captain's Verses there's a bunch of mediocre poems. Neruda had a high batting average, but not every poem he wrote was outstanding, and it wasn't all that great on this book. Frankly, I'm peeved at ND for this gimmickry. The great press under Laughlin that took risks and brought us William Carlos Williams, Herman Hesse's Siddhartha, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti-- you want a vanguard press that would never succumb to commercialism over the inherent principles of literature-- Ferlinghetti's City Lights-- If you want Neruda's love poetry, check out Ferlinghetti's The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems-- it truly is the essence of Pablo, with some of his best love poems. Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair: Dual Language Edition (Penguin Classics)is of course one of poetry's great classics, but it only represents the voice of Neruda in his twenties, without the broad scope and some of his best love lyrics throughout one of the most prolific careers in the history of modern poetry. 100 Love Sonnets: Cien sonetos de amor (Texas Pan American Series) has some great Neruda love poems, but the majority, truly, aren't so great. And personally, along with others I feel that much of the inherent power of Neruda's poems in this book are lost in the flat translations of this edition. Again, if you do want The Captain's Verses, show New Directions that you can't judge--or change, for marketing reasons--a book by its cover, and get the original, The Captain's Verses