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    Keeping Quiet 3 3 3 3 3: About The Poet

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    MamataMaharana
    Pablo Neruda's poem "Keeping Quiet" advocates for taking time for quiet introspection and understanding between humans. The poem imagines counting to twelve without using language or moving much, creating a moment of shared strangeness without noise or activity. This would allow fishermen and workers to pause from harming others or themselves. The poet believes that ceasing single-minded activity could interrupt humanity's "sadness" of never understanding itself and lessen threats of "death." By learning to be still occasionally, like nature appears dead but remains alive, people may learn as well.

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    Keeping Quiet 3 3 3 3 3: About The Poet

    Uploaded by

    MamataMaharana
    45 views3 pages
    Pablo Neruda's poem "Keeping Quiet" advocates for taking time for quiet introspection and understanding between humans. The poem imagines counting to twelve without using language or moving much, creating a moment of shared strangeness without noise or activity. This would allow fishermen and workers to pause from harming others or themselves. The poet believes that ceasing single-minded activity could interrupt humanity's "sadness" of never understanding itself and lessen threats of "death." By learning to be still occasionally, like nature appears dead but remains alive, people may learn as well.

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    Pablo Neruda's poem "Keeping Quiet" advocates for taking time for quiet introspection and understanding between humans. The poem imagines counting to twelve without using language or moving much, creating a moment of shared strangeness without noise or activity. This would allow fishermen and workers to pause from harming others or themselves. The poet believes that ceasing single-minded activity could interrupt humanity's "sadness" of never understanding itself and lessen threats of "death." By learning to be still occasionally, like nature appears dead but remains alive, people may learn as well.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    45 views3 pages

    Keeping Quiet 3 3 3 3 3: About The Poet

    Uploaded by

    MamataMaharana
    Pablo Neruda's poem "Keeping Quiet" advocates for taking time for quiet introspection and understanding between humans. The poem imagines counting to twelve without using language or moving much, creating a moment of shared strangeness without noise or activity. This would allow fishermen and workers to pause from harming others or themselves. The poet believes that ceasing single-minded activity could interrupt humanity's "sadness" of never understanding itself and lessen threats of "death." By learning to be still occasionally, like nature appears dead but remains alive, people may learn as well.

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    www.ncertpdf.

    in

    3 Keeping Quiet
    About the poet
    Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) is the pen name of Neftali
    Ricardo Reyes Basoalto who was born in the town of
    Parral in Chile. Neruda’s poems are full of easily
    understood images which make them no less beautiful.
    He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in the year 1971.
    In this poem Neruda talks about the necessity of quiet
    introspection and creating a feeling of mutual
    understanding among human beings.

    Before you read


    What does the title of the poem suggest to you? What do you think
    the poem is about?

    Now we will count to twelve


    and we will all keep still.

    For once on the face of the Earth


    let’s not speak in any language,
    let’s stop for one second,
    and not move our arms so much.

    It would be an exotic moment


    without rush, without engines,
    we would all be together
    in a sudden strangeness.

    Fishermen in the cold sea


    would not harm whales
    and the man gathering salt
    would look at his hurt hands.

    Keeping Quiet/95

    2019–20
    www.ncertpdf.in

    Those who prepare green wars,


    wars with gas, wars with fire,
    victory with no survivors,
    would put on clean clothes
    and walk about with their
    brothers
    in the shade, doing nothing.

    What I want should not be


    confused
    with total inactivity.
    Life is what it is about;
    I want no truck with death.
    If we were not so single-minded
    about keeping our lives moving,
    and for once could do nothing,
    perhaps a huge silence
    might interrupt this sadness
    of never understanding ourselves
    and of threatening ourselves with
    death.

    Perhaps the Earth can teach us


    as when everything seems dead
    and later proves to be alive.

    Now I’ll count up to twelve


    and you keep quiet and I will go.

    to have no truck with : to refuse to associate or deal with, to refuse to


    tolerate something

    Think it out
    1. What will counting upto twelve and keeping still help us achieve?
    2. Do you think the poet advocates total inactivity and death?
    3. What is the ‘sadness’ that the poet refers to in the poem?
    4. What symbol from Nature does the poet invoke to say that there
    can be life under apparent stillness?
    96/Flamingo

    2019–20
    www.ncertpdf.in

    Try this out


    Choose a quiet corner and keep still physically and mentally
    for about five minutes. Do you feel any change in your state of
    mind?

    Notice the differing line lengths of the stanzas and


    the shift in thought from stanza to stanza.

    Keeping Quiet/97

    2019–20

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