Pablo Neruda was born Ricardo Eliezer Neftali Reyes y Basoalto on July 12, 1904, in the agricultural region of Parral, Chile. His father Jose del Carmen Reyes Morales, a railroad worker, soon relocated his family to Temuco, a frontier settlement in southern Chile. As a teenager he received encouragement from one of his teachers, the poet Gabriela Mistral, who would later win a Nobel Prize. Manuel Duran and Margery Safir in Earth Tones: The Poetry of Pablo Neruda note, "It is almost inconceivable that two such gifted poets should find each other in such an unlikely spot. Mistral recognized the young Neftali's talent and encouraged it by giving the boy books and the support he lacked at home." This support helped him find the confidence to write poetry and at fourteen to change his name legally to Pablo Neruda. During high school he published poems in local papers...