Bly Interview

We published many wonderful poems of Paul Celan and Juan Ramón Jiménez. After a few years, we were ready with Twenty Poems of Pablo Neruda, which James and I had translated, and I wrote to him for permission to print the Spanish and the translations. We had paid the Trakl estate $75. I said to Carol, "What do you think? Neruda's so great, let's offer him $150." She said, "Good idea." So I mentioned to him that we didn't have much money, but we could promise that many of the young poets in the US would read the book. He wrote back something like: "I know your Press very well. You were the first ones who printed my brother, Cesar Vallejo. Certainly you may publish my poems. I only have one request: that you send the $150 directly to a bookseller [he mentioned] in Barcelona. I owe him a lot of money. Yours, Pablo Neruda."
-Interview with Robert Bly