Nicanor Parra from Chile considered himself not a poet but an anti-poet since he eschewed all the pomp and circumstance frequently associated with poetry. After his public anti-poetry readings, Nicanor Parra would shout: "Me retracto de todo lo dicho." ("I take back everything I said.")
I discovered Nicanor Parra and his anti-poetry from reading Roberto Bolaño. Thanks, Roberto! I just liked the sound of someone being an anti-poet and writing anti-poetry.
And being an anti-poet must be good for the health as Nicanor Parra lived to be 103 (he died this past January).
So, I picked up his After-Dinner Declarations. Loved it! Long live anti-poetry!
Here are a batch of Nicanor Parra anti-poems from the collection along with my very modest anti-comments:
SILENCE SHITHEAD
2000 years of lying is enough!
-----------Not quite sure what Nicanor was thinking when he came up with 2000 years. Perhaps it has something to do with the so-call "Axial Age."
ART OF POETRY 1
1% inspiration
2% perspiration
& the rest . . .
luck
-----------Nicanor's takeoff from Thomas Alva Edison's famous: "Success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration." Nicanor hits the bull's-eye. Lucky guy! One of the benefits of being an anti-poet!
SON DON'T GO ON BEATING YOUR HEAD AGAINST A WALL
His lady mother used to tell him
Poetry no one reads
It doesn't matter if it's good or bad
------------- Sad but true. I know in my home country of the US, Mom and Dad fear one thing above all: having their daughter or son say: "I want to be a poet and make my living writing poetry."
LITERAL WORDS
Whoever may have thoroughly studied
The real world
Cannot help but become a communist
Whoever may have thoroughly studied
The communist party
Cannot help but become an anarchist
Believe me
Not to be an idealist at 20
Is not to have a heart
To go on being one at forty
Is not to have a head
--------------- Tell it like it is, Nicanor! But what are you at 100, Nicanor? Perhaps a 100% anti-poet!
TOO MANY STARS
The Creator overdid it
Half as many would have been more than enough
-------------Nicanor would know. After all, the anti-poet was also a physicist. Even as a non-physicist I tend to agree. All those stars. Much better to have only a few billion stars and planets but be able to contact other intelligent lifeforms now and then.
WHAT IS POETRY?
Existence based on the word
Poetry are you
Everything that moves is poetry
What doesn't change places is prose
But what is poetry
Everything that unites us is poetry
only prose can keep us apart
Yes but what is poetry
Life in words
An enigma that refuses to be deciphered by professors
A bit of truth and an aspirin
Antipoetry are you
----------------Anti-poetry for one and for all! I can click with Nicanor that poetry is a bit of truth and an aspirin.
THE END OF HISTORY
I don't know
How is something going to end
When it hasn't even begun . . .
-------------------- Bravo, Nicanor! Thanks again, Roberto, for leading me to a new voice from Chile.
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