7 unforgettable phrases by Nicanor Parra

Nicanor Parra’s phrases do not tell us about a poet, but about an anti-poet as he himself promulgated. He was a man of letters who lived more than a century and who never ceased to surprise with his particular way of seeing the world and expressing it.

The anti-poet was born on September 5, 1914 in San Fabián de Alico (Chili). Son of a musician who was also a primary school teacher and a dressmaker and weaver of peasant origin. Since he was a child he was encouraged to appreciate popular art. They also instilled in him a strong social conscience, which is reflected in many of Nicanor Parra’s phrases.

He won the National Prize for Literature in 1969, the Reina Sofía Prize for poetry in 2002 and the Cervantes Prize in 2011. He was one of those eternal candidates for the Nobel Prize in Literature, but he did not achieve it. He died at 103 years old, surrounded by love of his readers. These are some of the most remembered phrases of Nicanor Parra.

One of Nicanor Parra’s phrases about statistics

Antipoetry is characterized because it breaks with traditional poetry. It uses much more bizarre themes, structures and languages. This is a current that aims to demonstrate that poetry It is not always done with intricate language games.

Nicanor Parra’s phrases are also antiverses or antipoetry. This is one of them: “There are two loaves. You eat two. Me neither. Consumption average: one loaf per person”. It refers, with irony and humor, to the contradictions of statistics applied to social matters.

The Oracle’s Answer

One of the aspects that Nicanor Parra’s anti-poetry explores most is the absurd. This is perfectly captured in several of his anti-poems and in his phrases. This one, for example, resorts to a wonderful absurdity: “Oracle’s response. You do what you do you will regret”.

It is a beautiful way of stating that finally It doesn’t matter what happens, or what we do. It will always be something imperfect and wrong to some extent.. Doing something involves stopping doing other things instead. This, in some way, almost always induces some degree of regret.

Guilt and forgiveness

Here is a beautiful verse, which has also become one of Nicanor Parra’s most popular phrases. He says like this: “Stealing flowers in the moonlight I apologize left and right but I do not plead guilty”. The flowers that are stolen from darkness are made of light and for them forgiveness is asked.

What is interesting is the second statement: that whoever asks for forgiveness, in any case, does not declare himself guilty. What a beautiful way to declare that although harm has been caused, there is no regret for what was done. A declaration that one acts out of conviction, even being aware that it eventually affects others..

Do countries exist or the illusion that they exist?

The political theme is recurring in Nicanor Parra’s antipoetry. He is not exactly the defender of any cause, but rather a denouncer of the contradictions of power. His disposition is of an anarchist lineage: neither right nor left, but on the side of human beings and reason.

Another of Nicanor Parra’s great phrases says the following: “We believe we are a country and the truth is that we are just a landscape”. This statement is a declaration of rejection of those political-administrative concepts created by men. The Earth does not demarcate countries. They are demarcated by men. In reality there is only landscape.

The names of things

The anti-poet also reflects in his writings about what poetry and the poetic are. One of the definitions about the role of the poet is wonderfully expressed in this profound phrase: “The poet does not keep his word if he does not change the names of things”.

It means that poetry is above all renaming the world and reality.. Rebaptize physical and mental objects. That is, saying things in a way that they have never been said. Renew your look at what exists.

These are just some of the wonderful phrases of Nicanor Parra, the anti-poet. His departure was mourned in his homeland and around the world.. There remains, for posterity, the testimony of a man who made the word an authentic creation.

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