About the book Bly published of Neruda translations in the mid-sixties, author Jon Zurn quotes Bly as saying “I think that was the first time he’d been published in the U.S.” That’s not so. The first Neruda poems in English that were published in a book in the U.S. seem to have been in Three Spanish American poets: Pellicer, Neruda [and] Andrade (Albuquerque, Sage Books 1942). But subsequent editions devoted solely to English translations of Neruda’s writings were issued by the estimable New Directions in 1946, New York-based Masses & Mainstream in 1950, Grove Press in 1961, and City Lights in 1962.
Chris Dodge
Utne magazine librarian
Minneapolis
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