Oda al Gato
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Oda al Gato (Ode to the Cat) is a poem by the chilean poet and Nobel laureate, Pablo Neruda from his book "Navegaciones y regresos" (Voyages and Homecomings) that was first published in Buenos Aires, Argentina by Losado in 1959. The ode that celebrates the obscure nature of cats has been translated by many scholars including Ken Krabbenhoft.
Neruda’s “Ode to the cat” poem has been used in Jazz music festivals and was also used in the Poetry in Motion project in New York City; where public trains and buses carried verses of selected poems, on spaces normally reserved for commercial advertisement.
[edit] Ode to the Cat (Oda al gato)
There was something wrong
with the animals:
their tails were too long,
and they had unfortunate heads.
Then they started coming together,
little by little
fitting together to make a landscape,
developing birthmarks, grace, pep.
But the cat,
only the cat
turned out finished,
and proud:
born in a state of total completion,
it sticks to itself
and knows exactly what it wants.
...
