Bøger af Nicanor Parra

Den 5. september fylder den chilenske digter og matematiker Nicanor Parra 102 år. Han har haft stor indflydelse på spansksproget poesi og har modtaget de største priser der findes i spansk litteratur og været kandidat til Nobelprisen. Denne bog indeholder et fyldigt udvalg af hans store og spredte værk, for første gang på dansk. Med noteapparat og introduktionstekst, med illustrationer, af Gloria Galindo.

El presente volumen de Nicanor Parra es la primera antología completa, y en edición de lujo, de los ecopoemas del gran poeta chileno, creador de la antipoesía y Premio Cervantes 2011. Por ecopoemas se entienden todas aquellas composiciones del autor dedicadas a la temática ecológica y la conservación del planeta, causa de la que fue militante pionero desde mediados del pasado siglo. El volumen reúne creaciones procedentes de títulos tan fundamentales como Poemas y antipoemas (1954), Ecopoemas (1982) o Poesía política (1983), y a la vez reproduce a gran formato los artefactos visuales del autor, tan geniales e incisivos como los poemas visuales de Joan Brossa. La antología y los comentarios corren a cargo de Niall Binns, profesor de literatura hispanoamericana de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid y especialista en la vida y la obra de Parra. This Nicanor Parra volume is the first complete anthology, and in a deluxe edition, of the ecopoems of the great Chilean poet, creator of anti-poetry and winner of the 2011 Cervantes Prize. By ecopoems we understand all those compositions of the author dedicated to ecological issues and the conservation of the planet, a cause of which he was a pioneering activist since the middle of last century. The volume brings together creations from such fundamental titles as Poems and Antipoems (1954), Ecopoems (1982) or Political Poetry (1983), and at the same time reproduces in large format the author's visual artifacts, as brilliant and incisive as Joan Brossa's visual poems. This anthology and its commentaries are done by Niall Binns, professor of Hispano-American literature at the Complutense University of Madrid and a specialist in the life and work of Parra.

La publicacion en 1954 de Poemas y antipoemas revoluciono la poesia. La voz natural del cantor lirico se transformo en la de un antilirico adversario de si mismo. El discurso esta constituido por saltos, exabruptos y reflexiones imprevistas. Los antipoemas se nutren del lenguaje poetico tradicional ironizandolo.

"Real seriousness," Nicanor Parra, the antipoet of Chile, has said, rests in "the comic." And read in that light, this newest collection of his work is very serious indeed. It is an abundant offering of his signature mocking humor, subverting received conventions and pretensions in both poetry and everyday life, public and private, ingeniously and wittily rendered into English in an antitranslation (the word is Parra's) by Liz Werner. Of the fifty-eight pieces in Antipoems, the first twenty-three are taken from Parra's 1985 collection, Hojas de Parra ("Vine Leaves" or "Leaves of Parra"), two others appeared in his Paginas en Blanco ("Blank Pages," 2001), while the rest come straight out of his notebooks and have never been published before, either in Spanish or English. The book itself is divided into two sections, "Antipoems" (im)proper and a selection of Parra's most recent incarnation of the antipoem, the hand-drawn images of his "Visual Artefactos."As his anti-translator Liz Werner explains in her Introduction, Parra's scientific training infuses his work. "Viewed through the lens of antimatter," she writes, "antipoetry mirrors poetry, not as its adversary but as its perfect complement."

Antipoems: New and Selected, a fresh bilingual gathering as well as retrospective of the work of Chile's foremost poet, reintroduces him to North American readers after thirteen years. Though he has been hardly unproductive, the politics of his homeland have channeled his inventiveness into new modes of expression, which remind us of the sometimes sly hermeticism of Italian writers, Eugenio Montale and Elio Vittorini among them, during the Fascist regime. As Frank MacShane makes clear in his introduction, Parra has not tried to escape repression, but by "using his wit and his humor, he has shown how the artist can still speak the truth in troubled times." Since much of Parra's early work is now out of print, editor David Unger has included many of the poems which influenced North American poets such as Ferlinghetti and Merton in the '50s and '60s, some in new or revised translations. Of Parra's more recent work, there are generous selections from Artifacts (1972), Sermons and Preachings of the Christ of Elqui (1977), New Sermons and Preachings of the Christ of Elqui(1979), Jokes to Mislead the Police (1983), Ecopoems (1983), Recent Sermons(1983), and a section of "Uncollected Poems" (1984). Antipoems: New and Selected is edited by David Unger, who contributed many of the translations to Enrique Lihn's The Dark Room and Other Poems (New Directions, 1978). Professor Frank MacShane of Columbia University, in his critical introduction, gives a full evaluation of a poet who is "unquestionably one of the most influential and accomplished in Latin America today, heir to the position long held by his countryman, Pablo Neruda."