Nicanor Parra & Other Chilean Writers
Why is Chile the Land of Poets? (Article)
8 Chilean Female Poets You Need to be Reading (article)
Nicanor Parra & Antipoetry
Anti poetry is an art movement that rejects the "mystical" aspect of poetry--the poet as seer or prophet, for example. Anti poetry also rejects the idea of the "love poem". Nicanor Parra's style is meant to be prose-like and involves irreverent subject matter. Punctuation is minimal. Made up words or grammar mistakes are used as an effect. The poetic form, traditional formatting or line breaking and capitalization is also examined. The subject matter might be comical or simple or taken from normal everyday life. The subject matter involves the banal or common or ordinary: kitchen sinks, bathtubs, light bulbs, a coffee stain or broken pencil--all common items are fair game. Serious subjects are dealt with humorously or irreverently, or even matter-of-factly. The speaker of the poem often lies or presents misinformation or leaves out part of the cause of his/her suffering--suffering and pain from love or loss being a favorite topic for most poets. The anti-poet is not one to wear his heart on a sleeve.
Ex. Socorro! (Help!)
I don't know how I wound up here
I was running happy and content
With my hat in my right hand
After a phosphorescent butterfly
Who drove me wild with joy
When suddenly pow! I tripped
And I don't know what happened to the
garden
The landscape changed completely!
My mouth and nose are bleeding.
Really I don't know what happened
Save me once and for all
Or shoot me in the back of the neck.
Charles Simic: “This is true of poems...We may start believing that we are recreating an experience, that we are making an attempt at mimesis, but then the language takes over,. Suddenly the words have a mind of their own...My poems (in the beginning) are like a table on which one places interesting things one has found on one’s walks: a pebble, a rusty nail, a strangely shaped root, the corner of a torn photograph, etc.,… where after months of looking at them and thinking about them daily, certain surprising relationships, which hint at meanings, begin to appear.”
Before Neruda and Parra, there was Gabriela Mistral. Let's learn about her here: Gabriela Mistral documentary (11 min.) and then read some of her poems.
Before we leave today, let's check in with Jeanette Winterson's novel.
HOMEWORK: Please read Part 2 of The Stone Gods: Easter Island. Bring back your books and the Chilean writers packet to our next class.
Extra Credit: Come see and support our Reader's Theater production of "Pipeline" by Dominque Morriseau. 7:00 in the Ensemble Theater. $5 (or 1 ticket free when you bring a friend).
Also, parent/teacher conferences are tonight (5-7 p.m.)
8 Chilean Female Poets You Need to be Reading (article)
Nicanor Parra & Antipoetry
Anti poetry is an art movement that rejects the "mystical" aspect of poetry--the poet as seer or prophet, for example. Anti poetry also rejects the idea of the "love poem". Nicanor Parra's style is meant to be prose-like and involves irreverent subject matter. Punctuation is minimal. Made up words or grammar mistakes are used as an effect. The poetic form, traditional formatting or line breaking and capitalization is also examined. The subject matter might be comical or simple or taken from normal everyday life. The subject matter involves the banal or common or ordinary: kitchen sinks, bathtubs, light bulbs, a coffee stain or broken pencil--all common items are fair game. Serious subjects are dealt with humorously or irreverently, or even matter-of-factly. The speaker of the poem often lies or presents misinformation or leaves out part of the cause of his/her suffering--suffering and pain from love or loss being a favorite topic for most poets. The anti-poet is not one to wear his heart on a sleeve.
Ex. Socorro! (Help!)
I don't know how I wound up here
I was running happy and content
With my hat in my right hand
After a phosphorescent butterfly
Who drove me wild with joy
When suddenly pow! I tripped
And I don't know what happened to the
garden
The landscape changed completely!
My mouth and nose are bleeding.
Really I don't know what happened
Save me once and for all
Or shoot me in the back of the neck.
In an antipoem, often a concise and direct statement is the root cause of the protagonist's conflict or suffering. Depression and sadness are described with restraint, with little care, or reported as matter-of-fact instead of something to be taken too seriously.
"Preguntas a la hora del té"
This pale gentleman seems like
A figure in the wax museum;
He looks through the torn curtains:
What is worth more, gold or beauty?
Is the moving stream worth more
Or the immobile grass on the bank?
In the distance, a bell is heard
That opens one more wound, or closes it:
Is the water in the fountain more real
Or the girl who looks at herself in it?
No one knows; people pass him by
Building castles in the sand.
Is the transparent glass superior
To the hand of the man who creates it?
One breathes a tired air
Of ashes, of smoke, of sadness:
What was once seen is not seen again
The same way, say the dry leaves.
Time for tea, toast, margarine,
Everything enveloped in a kind of fog.
We'll read some of Parra's other poems. Look for the seeds of the anti-poem style.
"Preguntas a la hora del té"
This pale gentleman seems like
A figure in the wax museum;
He looks through the torn curtains:
What is worth more, gold or beauty?
Is the moving stream worth more
Or the immobile grass on the bank?
In the distance, a bell is heard
That opens one more wound, or closes it:
Is the water in the fountain more real
Or the girl who looks at herself in it?
No one knows; people pass him by
Building castles in the sand.
Is the transparent glass superior
To the hand of the man who creates it?
One breathes a tired air
Of ashes, of smoke, of sadness:
What was once seen is not seen again
The same way, say the dry leaves.
Time for tea, toast, margarine,
Everything enveloped in a kind of fog.
We'll read some of Parra's other poems. Look for the seeds of the anti-poem style.
Here are some other contemporary writers anti-poems:
- Charles Simic: The Immortal & Back at the Chicken Shack; Eyes Fastened with Pins
- Billy Collins: Animating Poetry - Everyday Moments, Caught in Time (Lecture/video)
TASK: Write an anti-poem. See some of the techniques discussed above and use Parra's poetry as an example or model.
Before Neruda and Parra, there was Gabriela Mistral. Let's learn about her here: Gabriela Mistral documentary (11 min.) and then read some of her poems.
Before we leave today, let's check in with Jeanette Winterson's novel.
Jeanette Winterson is a contemporary novelist. She is a lesbian writer who dabbles in science fiction, literary and poetic prose. She was born in Manchester, England, and adopted by Pentecostal parents who brought her up in the nearby mill-town. She attended Oxford, and currently writes for various UK newspapers (she is a journalist, as well as a literary novelist and poet).
HOMEWORK: Please read Part 2 of The Stone Gods: Easter Island. Bring back your books and the Chilean writers packet to our next class.
Extra Credit: Come see and support our Reader's Theater production of "Pipeline" by Dominque Morriseau. 7:00 in the Ensemble Theater. $5 (or 1 ticket free when you bring a friend).
Also, parent/teacher conferences are tonight (5-7 p.m.)
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