“Estados Unidos: el país donde

la libertad es una estatua.”

(“United States: the country where

liberty is a statue”)

–Nicanor Parra

Nicanor Parra, often described as an “anti-poet”, died on Tuesday aged 103. Parra was a Chilean artist and poet who rejected the formalisms of poetry and abstract, inaccessible, wankiness. He was direct, blunt, unafraid, and ironic. His sister Violeta Parra was a well-known singer-song writer, and a pioneer of the revolutionary and political folk music movement nueva cancion. In the 30s in Latin America (and still today), a floral, romantic type of poetry dominated, and Parra broke with that.

I’ve translated one of this poems which gets to the heart of what he stood for, below (see the original Spanish here):

Manifesto

Señoras y señores

This is our last word.

– Our first and last word –

Poets have come down from Olympus.

For our elderly

Poetry was a luxury item

But for us

It’s an item of basic necessity:

We can’t live without poetry.

Unlike our elderly

– And I say this with all due respect –

We maintain

That a poet isn’t an alchemist

A poet is a man (sic) like any other

A bricklayer who builds walls:

A builder of doors and windows

We talk

In the language of everyday

We don’t believe in cabbalistic signs

Further, one thing:

A poet exists

So the tree doesn’t grow crookedly.

This is our message.

We denounce the demiurge poet

The cheap poet

The rat in the library poet.

All these señores

– And I say this with all due respect –

Should be accused and judged

For building castles in the air

For squandering space and time

For grouping words together at random

According to the latest Paris fashion.

Not for us:

Thought isn’t born in the mouth

It’s born in the heart of the heart

We condemn

Sunglasses poetry

Sword and cape poetry

Shadow of a big wing poetry

Instead, we favour

Poetry for the naked eye

Poetry for the uncovered chest

Poetry for the naked head

We don’t believe in nymphs or tritons.

Poetry has to be this:

A young woman surrounded by sprigs

Or not be absolutely anything.

Now then, in the area of politics

Them, our grandparents,

Our good grandparents!

Refracted and scattered

As they passed through the glass crystal

A few of them became communists.

I don’t know if they really were.

Lets imagine they were communists

I know one thing:

They weren’t grassroots poets,

They were revered bourgeois poets.

It’s important to say things as they are:

Just from time to time

They knew how to get to the heart of the people.

Every time that they could

They declared themselves of words and actions

Against guided poetry

Against poetry of the present

Against working class poetry.

Let’s accept that they were communists.

But the poetry was a disaster

Second hand surrealism

Third hand decadentism,

Old planks returned by the sea.

Adjective poetry

Nasal and guttural poetry

Arbitrary poetry

Poetry compiled from books

Poetry based

On the word revolution

Under circumstances that should be based

On the ideas revolution

Vicious cycle poetry

for a half a dozen chosen ones

“Absolute freedom of expression”

Now we cross ourselves asking

What did they write these things for,

To scare the petty bourgeois?

Miserably wasted time!

The petty bourgeois don’t react

Unless it’s about their stomach.

That they would be frightened by poetry!

This is the situation:

While they supported

a twilight poetry

a night time poetry

We advocated for

a dawn poetry.

This is our message,

Poetry’s brightness

should arrive to everyone, equally

Poetry is enough for everyone.

Nothing further, compañeros

We condemn

– And I say this with all due respect –

Little god poetry

Sacred cow poetry

Furious bull poetry

We oppose

poetry in the clouds

Solid ground poetry

– Cold head, warm heart –

We are decidedly solid-groundists

Against coffee poetry – nature’s poetry

Against loungeroom poetry – public square poetry

Social protest poetry.

The poets have come down from Olympus.