"Fully Empowered" first appeared in Spanish in 1962, under the title "Plenos Poderes". Neruda himself regarded this collection as a particular favorite, partly because it came out of a most fruitful period in his life, partly because it is a miscellany of poetic manners, a representative anthology of his vast poetic range. The thirty-six poems vary from short, intense lyrics through characteristic Neruda odes and whimsical addresses to friends to magnificent meditations on the office a poet, and include a few poems which would unquestionably claim a place in any selection of Neruda's greatest work, notably "The People" ("El Pueblo"), the most celebrated of his later poems. "Fully Empowered" could well serve as a concentrated demonstration of the dazzling diversity, in manner and theme, of this most inexhaustible of poets. -- From publisher's description.