"Extravagaria" was one of Neruda's favorite collections and marks an important stage in the progress of his poetry. It was written at the point in his life when he had returned to Chile after many wanderings and had come to rest in Isla Negra, the small settlement on the Pacific coast that became his last home. The poems celebrate this coming to rest, this rediscovery of the sea and the land. In "Extravagaria" Neruda evolved a lyric poetry that is...

Poems celebrating Hispanic culture are the focus of this collection. Liberal sprinkling of Spanish words and phrases with some poems translated from one language to another make this an ideal anthology for both the English class and the bilingual ESL classroom. Topics for poems extend from hot dogs to learning English to the revolution in Nicaragua. What all of the selections have in common is the adolescent experience at the core of the poem.

The dot: Vashti thinks she can't draw. No, Vashti knows she can't draw! To prove her point, she jabs at a blank sheet of paper to make an unremarkable and angry mark. That one little dot marks the beginning of Vashti's journey of surprise and self-discovery; Beautiful moon: With the help of a wish on a moonlit night, a little girl's fantasy becomes reality. In a wink the beautiful moon understands the desire for a day that never ends and grants her...