The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda was once asked which were the best and worst language vehicles for his poetry in translation. After pondering the matter, the poet opined that he preferred Italian, since it “comes closest (to my original Spanish), because by keeping the values of the words, the sound helps reflect the sense.” English was deemed the worst for his purposes, “being so much more direct, [it] often expresses the meaning of my poetry but does not convey its atmosphere.” Indeed, the poet added, “the accuracy of the translation itself, of the meaning, may be what destroys the poem.” It should be noted that the French language did not fare well, either: “In many of the French translations . . . my poetry seems to me to vanish, nothing is left, yet one can’t complain because they express what one has written.” Translation is clearly a complex problem, best summarized by the impression that a whole range of poetic expression in Spanish has an emotional charge and a verbal power best realized by reading the poetry aloud, as most certainly is the case with both Neruda and Lorca—their verses take flight only with the spoken word, and their respective public triumphs were often in theaters, if not stadiums (as in Neruda’s case). English poetic expression is far more muted, paceDylan Thomas, more for the eye than the ear. One only has to compare and contrast any of the recordings made by Neruda and T. S. Eliot to hear