You are about to hear an authentic poet. One of those whose senses are trained to a world that is not ours and that few people perceive. A poet closer to death than to philosophy, closer to pain than to intellect, closer to blood than to ink . . .
[This is] poetry that is not ashamed to break with tradition, that is not afraid of ridicule, and that can suddenly break out sobbing in the middle of the street . . .
I would advise you to listen closely to this great poet and to let yourself be touched by him in your own way. Poetry, like any other sport, requires a long initiation, but in true poetry there is a perfume, an accent, a luminous trace that all living beings can perceive. And hopefully it will help you to nourish that grain of insanity that we all have within us, which many people kill in order to put on the hateful monocle of bookish pedantry. It would be unwise to live without it.
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One of the central members of the cultural circle in Madrid was Delia del Carril. She was a brilliant Argentine artist, communist, and political activist, and she came from aristocratic roots, an enticing combination for Neruda. Excited for his friends to know his new amigo, Lorca often talked about “this amazing Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda,” whom he met in Buenos Aires, “who’s coming to be consul in Madrid in October.” Delia had read some of Neruda’s poems from Residence that had appeared in magazines before his arrival in Spain. Still, the Chilean was a mystery to her, as she was to him.
There was a magnetic feeling between the two when they first sat side by side at the bar Cervecería Correos, one of the group’s main gathering places. As Delia described it, Neruda “put his arm around my shoulder, and that’s how we stayed.” Neither creative, nor intellectual, nor political, Maruca did not participate in Neruda’s social world at all. In her last months of pregnancy, she mostly remained at home. Meanwhile, Delia’s radiance was alluring, but Neruda fell in love with her primarily for her brilliant mind (which had not been the case with Maruca or Albertina). She would be central to Neruda’s life for years. In Spain, they were an ideal fit. Their affair began quickly and they did little to keep it a secret.
Delia was born in 1884, into a rich and high-class family. There was nothing prim about her; she was always a rebel. She would gallop her horse through the gardens at her family’s country estate. Their Buenos Aires mansion was famous for hosting some of the most celebrated intellectuals of the time. There were poetry recitals, cultural salons, art exhibitions, new dances, and long conversations about French composers. Delia and her siblings were present at the gatherings, and from there she developed an appetite for culture. She started reading French poetry as a young child.
Eight days before she turned fifteen, Delia’s father, a former chief justice of Argentina’s Supreme Court, shot himself in the family’s garden. He had been despondent over the death of his beloved mother, who had succumbed to breast cancer exactly one year before. Delia had shared a strong bond with her father; she felt he understood her impulsive character, her outbursts, her obsession to understand everything. She never talked about her father again.
In response to the tragedy, Delia’s mother took the children to Paris, dividing their lives between Europe and Buenos Aires. Delia took singing and art classes. As a debutante, she went to parties, balls, and operas. As she came of age, her gatherings with friends became increasingly intellectual in nature. Yet while she seemed to be one of the happiest and most vibrant of her circle, those who knew her well saw her searching for self-definition.
In 1921, at the age of thirty-seven, Delia ended a brief marriage to a rich poet, art critic, morphine addict, and adventurer. He had stifled her independence, and then she caught him in an affair with a famous Spanish dancer. Delia went to Argentina, where she had an intense but brief romance with the vanguard poet Oliverio Girondo. In 1929, she returned to Paris and studied painting under Fernand Léger at l’Académie Moderne. The two developed a great friendship, which was rumored to have at least sometimes been amorous. She became friends with Pablo Picasso, Rafael Alberti, and María Teresa León, as well as the French surrealist poets Louis Aragon and Paul Éluard. Here, she was introduced to Marxism and the Communist cause. It was the time of rising fascism in Europe, and in French circles, art alone wasn’t enough. A political commitment had to go along with it. This new scene and its passionate ideals of equality and justice completed Delia, filling the void in her by offering the identity she had been searching for. She joined the French Communist Party and the recently formed Association of Revolutionary Writers and Artists.
While in Paris, Rafael Alberti and María Teresa León told Delia about the excitement of the new Republic in their native Spain. They were about to return, and they invited Delia to join them. Delia instantly fell into the circle of young activist intellectuals and writers in Madrid, as Neruda later would.
The youthful goatherd poet Miguel Hernández and the great filmmaker Luis Buñuel were also members of this community. Many were friends with Picasso, even though he had moved to France. The famously eccentric surrealist painter Salvador Dalí was involved too, especially in “an erotic, tragic love” with Lorca. For these young artists and intellectuals, Spain’s emerging socialist, progressive culture was exhilarating. Along with Alberti, Delia became one of the political teachers of the group. With her fluency in Spanish, English, and French, Delia was indispensable as a translator for the international communists and other leftists
