In this 1992 photo, Nicanor Parra
writes on the blackboard as he teaches a class at an engineering school in
Santiago, Chile. His messages reads in Spanish “Back to democracy for what. So
the movie repeats itself? No.” Parra, a Chilean physicist, mathematician and
self-described “anti-poet” whose eccentric writings won him a leading place in
Latin American literature, died Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2018. He was 103. (Alvaro
Hoppe/Associated Press)
Chilean poet, physicist Nicanor Parra dies at 103
By Eva Vergara | AP
January 23 at 5:52 PM
SANTIAGO, Chile — Nicanor Parra, a Chilean
physicist, mathematician and self-described “anti-poet” whose eccentric
writings won him a leading place in Latin American literature, died Tuesday. He
was 103.
His death was confirmed by Chilean President
Michelle Bachelet, who expressed her condolences. Her government ordered
national flags to be flown at half-staff in public buildings and decreed two
days of mourning.
“Chile loses one of the greatest authors in the
history of our literature and a singular voice in Western culture,” she said.
Characterized by wit and irreverence, Parra’s works
include “Poemas para Combatir la Calvicie” (Poems to Fight Baldness, 1993), and
“La Montana Rusa” (The Roller Coaster, 1962), in which he says he wants to
disturb the comfortable world of poetry with a ride that people take at their
own risk.
While his poetry won him fame, Parra was a
respected physicist, earning a degree from the University of Chile and then
studying physics at Brown University and cosmology at Oxford University in
England. He was a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Chile
and taught at Columbia, Yale, New York University and Louisiana State
University.
Parra brought the skepticism of science to his
literary work, rejecting traditional poetic techniques and experimenting with
prose-like styles, everyday images and grotesque humor in what he called
“anti-poetry.”
“The popular poetry of Nicanor Parra is red and
palpitating like a fighting cock crowing in the ring,” wrote literary critic
Fernando Alegria in “Literature and Revolution.”
Parra published his first book, “Cancionero sin
Nombre,” (Singer without a Name), in 1937 and then become interested in writing
poetry that would reach the general public.
He earned international fame in 1954 with “Poemas y
Antipoemas” (Poems and Antipoems) and won Chile’s prestigious National
Literature Prize in 1969 and a Guggenheim fellowship in 1972.
Once, in an art show in Santiago, Parra displayed
life-sized cardboard silhouettes of every Chilean president hanging from a noose,
in addition to a coffin with a steering wheel inside. A note on the coffin said
“just in case...” He gave no explanation of what the display meant.
At one point, he also replaced the sword held by a
statue of a Chilean hero in Santiago with an umbrella.
Parra wasn’t the first Latin American poet to buck
convention. Cesar Vallejo, Vicente Huidobro and Pablo Neruda had already
challenged the status quo as part of the region’s vanguard before him. But
Parra found a unique voice as a faulty human aware of his weaknesses and bitter
toward the absurdity of civilization.
While Parra was sometimes associated with Latin
America’s left, he ran into problems with leftists for his positive attitude of
the U.S.
In 1971, he visited Washington to attend a cultural
gathering sponsored by the Library of Congress, which included a visit to the
White House. Parra, along with other authors and poets, was received by Pat Nixon,
the wife of then President Richard Nixon. The visit earned Parra condemnation
from leftist groups around the world.
But Parra refused to be classified: “I am neither a
rightist nor a leftist,” he wrote, “I just break with everything!”
Born Sept. 15, 1914, Parra grew up in a chaotic but
talented family of eight children, several of whom became noted artists,
including folk singer Violeta Parra.
Parra spent most of his childhood in the suburbs of
Chillan. His father was a music teacher and his mother sang folkloric songs.
Parra spent the last decades of his life secluded
in his home near the sea on the central coast of Chile.
THE WASHINGTON POST
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