The Recent Winner of the Cervantes Prize

Poems by Nicanor Parra
Born in 1914 in the southern city
of Chillan, Nicanor Parra, the Antipoet of Chile, studied engineering
at the University of Chile, physics at Brown University, and cosmology at
Oxford, and spent many years as a teacher of mathematics and a professor of
physics. He published his first book of poems in 1938, but it was in 1954
with Poemas Y Antipoemas that he
became known as an "antipoet." His antitranslator, Liz Werner, is a
native New Yorker, poet, and novelist who has lived and studied in
Valparaiso, Chile, where she worked closely with Nicanor Parra.
(translated by Liz Werner)




Something
Like That

PARRA LAUGHS like he’s condemned to hell
but when haven’t poets laughed?
at least he declares that he’s laughing

they pass the years pass
the years
at least they seem to be passing
hypothesis non fingo
everything goes on as if they were passing

now he starts to cry
forgetting that he’s an antipoet

0

STOP RACKING YOUR BRAINS
nobody reads poetry nowadays
it doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad

0

FOUR DEFECTS that my Ophelia won’t forgive me for:
old
lowlife
communist
and National Literature Prize

< for the first three
but never for the last>>

0
MY CORPSE and I
understand each other marvelously
my corpse asks me: do you believe in God?
and I respond with a hearty NO
my corpse asks: do you believe in the government?
and I respond with the hammer and sickle
my corpse asks: do you believe in the police?
and I respond with a punch in the face
then he gets up out of his coffin
and we go arm in arm to the altar

0

THE TRUE PROBLEM of philosophy
is who does the dishes

nothing otherworldly

God
the truth
the passage of time
absolutely
but first, who does the dishes

whoever wants to do them, go ahead
see ya later, alligator
and we're right back to being enemies

0

HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT
compose a sonnet
that begins with the following iambic pentameter line:
I would prefer to die ahead of you
and that ends with the following:
I would prefer that you be first to die










0

YOU KNOW what happened
while I was kneeling
in front of the cross
looking at His wounds?

He smiled at me and winked!

before I thought He didn’t ever laugh:
but now yeah I believe for real

0

A DECREPIT old man
throws red carnations
at his beloved mother’s coffin

what you are hearing, ladies and gentlemen:
an old wino
bombarding his mother’s tomb
with ribbons of red carnations

0

I QUIT sports for religion
(I went to mass every Sunday)
I abandoned religion for art
art for the mathematical sciences

until at last illumination hit

and now I’m someone only passing through
who puts no faith in the whole or its parts
No
President's Statue Escapes

From those infallible pigeons
Clara Sandoval used to tell us:

Those pigeons know exactly what they’re doing