MODULE 3:

IF YOU FORGET ME
BY PABLO NERUDA

INTRODUCTION LESSON OBJECTIVE:

The best and the worst thing about love is that it cannot be Develop a clearer
expressed in words. When you truly love someone, it may be appreciation of the value of
hard to express those emotions through words. In fact, real love forgiveness
may make you feel weak in the knees and unable to speak.

PRE-ACTIVITY
What are the indications that you are romantically in love?
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________ Activate your
___________________________________________________
prior
___________________________________________________
knowledge.
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
Share your
___________________________________________________ thoughts on the
___________________________________________________ lines provided.
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
 ___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
Chile, country
___________________________________________________
situated along ___________________________________________________
the western ___________________________________________________

seaboard of
South America. COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:

Chile, country situated along the western seaboard of South

America. It extends approximately 2,700 miles (4,300 km) from
its boundary with Peru, at latitude 17°30′ S, to the tip of South
America at Cape Horn, latitude 56° S, a point only about 400
miles north of Antarctica. A long, narrow country, it has an
average width of only about 110 miles, with a maximum of 217
miles at the latitude of Antofagasta and a minimum of 9.6 miles
near Puerto Natales. It is bounded on the north by Peru and
Flag of Chile Bolivia, on its long eastern border by Argentina, and on the west
by the Pacific Ocean. Chile exercises sovereignty over Easter
Island, the Juan Fernández Archipelago, and the volcanic islets
of Sala y Gómez, San Félix, and San Ambrosio, all of which are
located in the South Pacific. Chile also claims a 200-mile
offshore limit. The capital is Santiago.

Chile’s relief is for the most part mountainous, with the Andes
range dominating the landscape. Because of the country’s
extreme length it has a wide variety of climates, from the
coastal desert beginning in the tropical north to the cold
Chile subantarctic southern tip. Chile is also a land of extreme natural
events: volcanic eruptions, violent earthquakes, and tsunamis
originating along major faults of the ocean floor periodically
beset the country. Fierce winter storms and flash floods
alternate with severe summer droughts.
Pablo Neruda is
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
one of the most
Pablo Neruda is one of the most influential and widely read influential and
20th-century poets of the Americas. “No writer of world renown widely read 20th-
is perhaps so little known to North Americans as Chilean poet
century poets of
Pablo Neruda,” observed New York Times Book Review critic
the Americas.
Selden Rodman. Numerous critics have praised Neruda as the
greatest poet writing in the Spanish language during his lifetime.
John Leonard in the New York Times declared that Neruda
“was, I think, one of the great ones, a Whitman of the South.”
Among contemporary readers in the United States, he is largely
remembered for his odes and love poems.

At this time, Neruda’s work began to move away from the highly
political stance it had taken during the 1930s. Neruda began to
try to speak to everyday people simply and clearly, on a level
that anyone could understand. He wrote poems on subjects
ranging from rain to feet. By examining common, ordinary,
everyday things very closely, according to Duran and Safir,
Neruda gives us “time to examine a particular plant, a stone, a
flower, a bird, an aspect of modern life, at leisure. We look at
the object, handle it, turn it around, all the sides are examined
with love, care, attention. This is, in many ways, Neruda … at
his best.”

In 2003, 30 years after Neruda’s death, an anthology of 600 of

Neruda’s poems arranged chronologically was published as Pablo Neruda

The Poetry of Pablo Neruda. The collection draws from 36

different translators, and some of his major works are also
presented in their original Spanish. Writing in the New Leader,
Phoebe Pettingell pointed out that, although some works were
left out because of the difficulty in presenting them properly in
English, “an overwhelming body of Neruda’s output is here …
 presented in their original Spanish. Writing in the New Leader,
Phoebe Pettingell pointed out that, although some works were
left out because of the difficulty in presenting them properly in
English, “an overwhelming body of Neruda’s output is here …
It is hard not to and the collection certainly presents a remarkable array of
be swept away subjects and styles.” Reflecting on the life and work of Neruda
by the urgency in the New Yorker, Mark Strand commented, “There is

of his language, something about Neruda—about the way he glorifies

and that’s experience, about the spontaneity and directness of his

passion—that sets him apart from other poets. It is hard not to
especially so
be swept away by the urgency of his language, and that’s
when he seems especially so when he seems swept away.”
swept away.
POEM:

I want you to know

one thing.

You know how this is:

if I look

at the crystal moon, at the red branch

of the slow autumn at my window,

if I touch

near the fire

Crystal moon
the impalpable ash

or the wrinkled body of the log,

were little boats

that sail
 everything carries me to you,

as if everything that exists,

aromas, light, metals,

...do not look
were little boats
for me,
that sail

toward those isles of yours that wait for me. for I shall
already have
Well, now,
forgotten
if little by little you stop loving me
you.
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 Isles

to leave me at the shore

remember

that on that day,

at that hour,
 of the heart where I have roots,

remember

that on that day,

I shall lift my
at that hour,
arms
I shall lift my arms
and my roots and my roots will set off
will set off
to seek another land.

to seek
another land. But

if each day,

each hour,

you feel that you are destined for me

with implacable sweetness,

if each day a flower

climbs up to your lips to seek me,

ah my love, ah my own,

in me all that fire is repeated,

in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,

my love feeds on your love, beloved,

and as long as you live it will be in your arms

without leaving mine.

REFLECTION

How can a person move on from a failed relationship? Share

your thoughts based on your experiences or other people’s
experiences. Pause for a while
___________________________________________________ and reflect on
___________________________________________________ the question.
___________________________________________________ Share your
___________________________________________________
thoughts on the
___________________________________________________
lines provided.
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________