Nicanor Parra and the Chaos of Postmodernity Miguel-Angel Zapata Associate Professor Department of Romance Languages and Literatures t would be risky to claim that the mode, with a tendency toward verse, work of a Latin American poet falls and in others we see the complete squarely within a given literary domination of the prose poem. But there movement. Contemporary Latin is also a luminosity that cannot be easily Nicanor Parra, 2005. Photo by Miguel-Angel Zapata. American poetry is split along identified, and the reason is that the various semantic lines, and tends poem’s interior light multiplies and pues, y que vengan las hembras de la I 1 toward a progressive deterritorialization. acquires different meanings on the page. pusta, las damas de Moravia, las egip- However, criticism of Latin American It cannot be said that the poetry of cias a sueldo de los condenados. poetry tends to fall into the dangerous Mutis is surrealistic or transparent or habit of gratuitous classifications, which that it tends only toward the practice Enough of the feverish and agitated vary according to the terminology of a of the prose poem; we can say, rather, men demanding in shrill voices what particular literary theory or according to that his poetry revitalizes language by is now owed to them! Enough of personal invention. Usually there are means of its sonorous multiplicity. fools! The hour of disputes between some anthologies that try to delimit the Mutis does not struggle to make his the quarrelsome, foreign to the order territory of poetry, categorizing it poems unintelligible (for that would of these places, is over. Now it is the according to the apparent tendencies be the death of him); his poems show, turn of the women, the Egyptian and styles of each group of poets. in contrast, a coherence and a gentle queens of Bohemia and Hungary, The most important contemporary obscurity. In stanza 3 of his poem the travelers of all roads; from their Latin American poets understand that “Caravansary” we read: goggling eyes, from their high hips, the fundamental aim of their craft is to oblivion will distill its best liquors, write poetry that makes sense and that ¡Alto los enfebrecidos y alterados que its most effective territories. Let us at the same time demonstrates vitality con voces chillonas demandan lo que settle our laws, say our chant and, and a renewal of the language. no se les debe! ¡Alto los necios! once and for all, let us outwit the Terminó la hora de las disputas entre misleading call of the old battle Defying Classification While rijosos, ajenos al orden de estas salas. schemer, our sister and lady standing Revitalizing Language Toca ahora el turno a las mujeres, over our tombs. Silence, then; let the las egipcias reinas de Bohemia y de females of Puzsta come, the dames of One example of this understanding Hungría, las trajinadoras de todos los Moravia, the Egyptian women in the is the work of the Colombian poet caminos; de sus ojos saltones, de sus pay of the criminals. Álvaro Mutis (b. 1923). In his poetry altas caderas, destilará el olvido sus we observe different tendencies, but no mejores alcoholes, sus más eficaces – From “Caravansary” (1981) single one takes precedence. In some of territorios. Afinquemos nuestras leyes, Translation by RoseMary McGee his poems we see a hermetic poetry digamos nuestro canto y, por última and Cristobal Gnecco (a poetry that is difficult to read and vez, engañemos la especiosa llamada understand, such as that of Góngora de la vieja urdidora de batallas, Other examples of this simultaneity and Quevedo, two of the most rigorous nuestra hermana y señora erguida ya and revitalization of poetic language are Spanish poets of all times), a surrealistic delante de nuestra tumba. Silencio, within the poetry of Carlos Germán 4 HOFSTRAHORIZONS Belli (b. 1927, Perú) and Oscar Hahn (b. 1938, Chile). Their poems witness the search for a transcendent colloquy Dog’s Life that explores itself in the meaning and form of the poem. They achieve this The professor and the dog’s life. The school is the temple of knowledge. through both permanence and Frustration on all planes. The master of the establishment variability. The best Latin American The sense of trouble inside the teeth And his mustache poetry tends toward this variability, When chalk scrapes. which is also seen in the younger poets Like an old movie lover The professor and the exact woman. of the ’70s and ’80s. The nakedness of the professor’s wife The professor and the precise woman. (The look breaks on an owl, Where do you find the precise woman?! Variability and Chaos in the The hair is too plain) A woman who is what she is Poetry of Nicanor Parra Leaving out the kiss on the cheek A woman who doesn’t look like a man. (More difficult to stop than to begin) This variability is also a principal The pain obscures the vision, The home is a field of battle. characteristic of the poetry of Nicanor The wrinkles that keep coming, The woman defends herself with her legs. Parra (b. 1914) of Chile. It is a The age of your own students, variability that is composed of images The repeated signals of disrespect. The sexual problems of the old that destabilize reading, visions that are The way of walking down the hall. To appear in an anthology, surrealistic and that practice irony, To bring on artificial spasms. making fun of the reader and above You can take the insults But not the artificial smile, As yet the professor has no remedy: all making fun of the world. They are The talk that leaves you nauseated. The professor is observing ants. poems that are written with the purpose of re-creating chaos and transparency. – Nicanor Parra [M.W.] Perhaps this chaos and transparency are characteristics of postmodernity as seen from the point of view of that hybrid zone of poetic language. below, written originally in English, in & to the Son & to the Holy Ghost The poetry of Nicanor Parra does which the poet ironizes the world of unless otherwise instructed not resist making sense, quite the signs and warnings in the cultures of the By the way contrary. If we are able, through the late 20th and early 21st centuries. We also hold these truths to be mist of its chaos, to laugh at its ironic self evident tone, then each time we read it we are In case of fire That all man [sic] are created admitting that difficulty is not a virtue. Do not use elevators That they have been endowed In his poetry there is a chancy chaos Use stairways by their creator and a transparency, as in the poetry of unless otherwise instructed With certain inalienable rights Charles Baudelaire. The critic Guillermo That among these are: Life Sucre affirms that Parra introduces chaos No smoking Liberty & the pursuit of happiness in the form of humor. Parra’s chaos, says No littering & last but not least Sucre, can provoke laughter and even No shitting that 2 + 2 makes 4 hilarity, but the reader who laughs No radio playing unless otherwise instructed knows that later a more secret anguish unless otherwise instructed awaits (266). The rediscovery of the Please Flush Toilet The text has been constructed of world (filled with light or darkness) After Each Use fragments of public discourse welded is always a new occasion, so that his Except When Train together in order to find, ironically, an poetry continually surprises us, making Is Standing At Station internal coherence in the poem. They us laugh at our own misfortune. Parra’s Be thoughtful are “ready-made” phrases that follow in speaker observes the most available Of The Next Passenger the footsteps of Marcel Duchamp. elements of daily life (an overcoat, a Onward Christian Soldiers Instead of great poetic showcasing, the tree, a plaza, a dove, retired people) as Workers of the World unite Chilean poet, always observant, writes well as the vast world and its laws. We have nothing to loose [sic] the poem using the “warnings” of Such is the case in “Warnings” (301) but our life Glory to the Father airports, public restrooms, restaurants HOFSTRAHORIZONS 5 and supermarkets. The world is full of artifacts that are true works of art; in this case, the artifacts are words that, when placed in another context, give new meaning to the poem. These arti- facts, in the form of warnings, shift in importance throughout the poem from a lesser degree to a greater degree, according to the priorities and duties demanded of every citizen or of every helpless person who wanders through the great developed cities. The streets in cities such as New York and London are packed full of “warnings” for the common pedestrian, just as in the train stations or in Protestant churches – in any church, for that matter. Postmodern cities, in this respect, are transformed into gilded jailhouses, since if one decides to live in one such “paradise,” one must obey the rules or pay the cor- responding fines for breaking them. Regarding these rules, the ironic tone of the expression “unless otherwise instructed” produces the premonition of both chaos and humor in the same context. Thus the poem becomes a game and a mockery of the apparent order in the postmodern developed world. A view of Isla Negra from Pablo Neruda’s house. Photo by Miguel-Angel Zapata. On the other hand, it behooves us to ask whether this practice of is placed in the marketplace of post- Y si supiera si ha de volver; progressive dislocation is a product of modernity, adding humor in a literary y si supiera qué mañana entrará postmodernity, and of the world that context that privileges the absurd.