ABOUT

Matilde Urrutia was a writer, a musician, and the subject of Pablo Neruda’s most well-known Love poems.

In 1952, Pablo Neruda published The Captain’s Verses in an anonymous edition of fifty copies. He wrote of love, esctasy, and devotion to Matilde Urrutia.

Versos de Matilde is an exploration of these poems from the perspective of the woman for, about, and with whom they were written. What would it sound like to hear the poem in the voice of its muse? What does the gaze of a lover look like, refracted back onto the beloved?

Changing the pronouns and corresponding verbs, I listened for a silent voice embedded in the text.