As a poet, Neruda was an observer of world events and of the intimacies of daily reality. Through imagery such as clothes draped over a chair, market greens and a pitch-black tuna, the night wind and blue stars in the sky, gardens, barber shops, roses, blood running in the streets and warehouses with corpses, Neruda's poems bring to the reader a sense of beauty amidst the chaos of life. Imagery is the use of language to explain the senses. Neruda’s words bring to life the sights and sounds, tastes and smells and physical sensations of the world within each poem.
Neruda’s poems are narrative in form. They are story poems. Narrative poems consist of topic, theme, voice, viewpoint, moment and ending. His early poems tell of love, sexual awakening and the longing that lost love can bring. Later poems tell of places such as his home on Isle Negra, of his cultural geography in Chile or of the more abstract places on Earth -- ocean, sky and shore. The ode series tells the stories of everyday objects such as clothes, socks, tuna, tomatoes and artichokes. Some poems, such as "Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks," or "Walking Around," narrate events. Within his narrative style, Neruda makes declarations, observations and connections between humans and the world around them.
Neruda’s poems are often brought to life through first-person point of view, the “I” narrator. Sharing his observations from this perspective allows the reader to understand Neruda’s experiences. He extended the use of first-person narration to include direct address of the subject of the poem, often referring to “you,” whether he was talking about a lover as in "Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines" or narrating to his pants in "Ode to Clothes." The rich detail in each poem lends a sense of authority and realism to Neruda’s perspective.
Neruda wrote most often in an unmetered style. While word sounds may blend and create a rhythm, he most often used free verse -- the use of a variety of lines that do not rhyme. Instead of structuring poems around rhyme schemes and numbers of syllables, Neruda created cadence with word placement, line breaks and multilayered descriptions of his subject.