POETRY

I. CULTURE

Instructions: Read the following information about literature.

Literature is the art of written works. Literally translated, the word means
"acquaintance with letters" (from Latin littera letter), and therefore the academic
study of literature is known as Letters (as in the phrase "Arts and Letters"). In
Western culture the most basic written literary types include fiction and
nonfiction.

People may perceive a difference between "literature" and some popular forms
of written work. The terms "literary fiction" and "literary merit" often serve to
distinguish between individual works. Critics may exclude works from the
classification "literature," for example, on the grounds of a poor standard of
grammar and syntax, of an unbelievable or disjointed story-line, or of
inconsistent or unconvincing characters. Genre fiction (for example: romance,
crime, or science fiction) may also become excluded from consideration as
"literature."

Poetry

A poem is a composition written in verse (although verse has been equally used
for epic and dramatic fiction). Poems rely heavily on imagery, precise word
choice, and metaphor; they may take the form of measures consisting of
patterns of stresses or of patterns of different-length syllables; and they may or
may not utilize rhyme. One cannot readily characterize poetry precisely.
Typically though, poetry as a form of literature makes some significant use of
the formal properties of the words it uses the properties of the written or
spoken form of the words, independent of their meaning. Meter depends on
syllables and on rhythms of speech; rhyme and alliteration depend on the
sounds of words.

Taken from https://rudirumer.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/literature/

II. INTERPRETATION

Instructions: Read in a careful way this poem then discuss with a partner
about it. What is the poem about?

If You Forget Me
by Pablo Neruda

I want you to know But

one thing. if each day,
each hour,
You know how this is:
if I look you feel that you are destined for me
at the crystal moon, at the red branch with implacable sweetness,
of the slow autumn at my window, if each day a flower
if I touch climbs up to your lips to seek me,
near the fire ah my love, ah my own,
the impalpable ash in me all that fire is repeated,
or the wrinkled body of the log, in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
everything carries me to you, my love feeds on your love, beloved,
as if everything that exists, and as long as you live it will be in your
aromas, light, metals, arms
were little boats without leaving mine
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for
me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,

the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.
Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), whose real name is
Neftal Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, was born on 12
July, 1904, in the town of Parral in Chile.
Taken from https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/if-you-forget-me/