Nicanor Parra
In this country, people don't understand what they read, but we still managed to get two Nobel Prize winners in poetry: Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda.
But today I want to talk to you about a third poet who, although not a Nobel Prize winner, I feel had and still has a greater influence on pop and internet culture, literature and politics.
Nicanor Parra was born in 1914. Raised in a working-class family, he, along with his brothers and sisters, established the Parra family as one of the greatest artistic clans that had a profound impact on Chilean and Latin American culture.
Although writing from an early age, Nicanor graduated as a math and physics teacher. Then, in 1948, he moved to Oxford to study for a PhD in Cosmology, but after a couple of years, he switched to literature.
In 1952, he would publish "Poems and Antipoems" at age 39, breaking the lyrical tradition of the Spanish language, the contemporary tradition of the political song, and defying the paradigms of what could be written and how.
In his own words:
The doctors of the law say this book shouldn't see light:
The word rainbow can't be found anywhere in it,
Much less the words sorrow
Or torquate.
Sure there's a swarm of chairs and tables,
Coffins! Desk Supplies!
All of which makes me burst with pride
Because, as I see it, the sky is coming down in pieces.
Warning to the reader
Artifacts
Suicide letter: Bye, I can't stand ambient music anymore
You know something, bro? idgaf about your poetry
I'll be right back
Ok, ok lets say I'm a marxist
Antipoetry
For half a century
Poetry was the paradise
Of the solemn fool.
Until I came along
And built my roller coaster.
Go up, if you feel like it.
It's not my fault if you come down
Bleeding from your nose and mouth.
Roller Coaster
The imaginary man
lives in an imaginary mansion
surrounded by imaginary trees
on the bank of an imaginary river
From the walls that are imaginary
hang ancient imaginary paintings
irreparable imaginary cracks
that represent imaginary events
occurred in imaginary worlds
in imaginary places and times
Every imaginary afternoon
he climbs the imaginary stairs
and leans out on the imaginary balcony
to look at the imaginary landscape
that consists of an imaginary valley
surrounded by imaginary hills
Imaginary shadows
come down the imaginary path
singing imaginary songs
to the death of the imaginary sun
And on nights of imaginary moon
he dreams of the imaginary woman
who offered him her imaginary love
he feels again that same pain
that same imaginary pleasure
and once again beats
the heart of the imaginary man
The imaginary man
Ladies and gentlemen
I have only one question:
Are we children of the Sun or of the Earth?
Because if we are only Earth
I see no reason
To continue shooting this picture!
I move the meeting be adjourned.
I move the meeting be adjourned - Translation by Allen ginsberg
More poems here
