"Who is this fantom without a fantom's body,
With its steps light as nocturnal dust
And its voice that only objects preserve"

In May 1943, Poetry's editors offered its second Latin American issue, featuring new translations of work by sixteen poets from Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Ecuador, Brazil, and Peru. Among the eleven new contributors to Poetry was a thirty-nine-year-old Pablo Neruda who was, at the time, Consul General in Mexico City and already "one of the most famous and influential figures in Contemporary Spanish American poetry."

Neruda's widespread fame as both poet and diplomat was a definite draw to readers, and his presence in the issue served to expose Poetry readers to other lesser known Latin American poets (though the "perceived leftist bent" of an issue featuring the work of an active member and one time senator in the Chilean Communist party did not sit well with some Poetry subscribers). His work would appeared in magazine on eight more occasions, from five different translators, before his death in 1973, and again in January 2000 translated by yet another writer moved to bring Neruda's thrilling voice into English.

As we continue the magazine's tradition of publishing new work in translation, with our April 2007 Translation Issue, featuring a new Robin Robertson translation of Neruda, we look back at Neruda's first appearance in our pages, sixty-four years ago: "Fantom of the Freightor."

View a slideshow of "Fantom of the Freightor" >>