The popular mythology of the poet is a romantic figure scribbling away in a solitary garret far removed from the real world. I believe in a poetics that is very much of this world, what Adrienne Rich refers to as "an ecology of  spirit, voice and passion." Why else would the junta that came into power on the day of Neruda's death need to sack his home, ban his books and encircle his residence with a fence?