Parra Poems - Poems about Parra

Advice to Young Poets by Nicanor Parra Sandoval loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Youngsters, write however you will in your preferred style. Too much blood flowed under the bridge for me to believe there’s just one acceptable path. In poetry everything’s permitted. Originally published by Setu Ivy by Michael R. Burch “Van trepando en mi viejo dolor como las yedras.” – Pablo Neruda “They climb on my old...

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Soliloquio del Individuo by Nicanor Parra, Translated by T. Wignesan (Homage to Nicanor PARRA, 1914-2018, the Chilean ANTI-POET, winner of the "Cervantes Prize" (the highest literary honour for writers in Spanish), four times nominated for the Nobel Prize, studied Physics (Brown University), Cosmology (Oxford University) and taught maths and physics for some 40 years, but styles...

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Hay un dia feliz by Nicanor Parra, Translated by T. Wignesan To come by a happy day (In this poem, Parra maintains lines of twelve to thirteen syllables with every other line ending almost in a mono-rhyme: “a”; I prefer not to follow the...

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Proyecto de tren instantaneo entre Santiago y Puerto Montt by Nicanor Parra, Translated by T. Wignesan Soliloquio del Individuo by Nicanor Parra, Translated by T Wignesan (Homage to Nicanor PARRA, 1914-2018, the Chilean ANTI-POET, winner of the "Cervantes Prize" (the highest literary honour for writers in Spanish), four times nominated for the Nobel Prize, studied Physics...

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Viva la Cordillera de los Andes by Nicanor Parra, Translated by T. Wignesan Long Live! The Andes Mountain Range! I’m seized with a mad rage to yell long live the Andes Mountain Range may the Costa Mountain Range lie low slain The reason I can hardly divine but I can’t hold...

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Madrigal (Although the poem’s title takes on a well-known 16th Century form of Italian origin, made famous in Spain by...

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The Test by Nicanor Parra, Translated by T. Wignesan What’s an antipoet: a trader in urns and coffins? a priest who does not believe in anything? a general who entertains doubts about himself? a vagabond who laughs at every thing until old age overtakes him unto death? an interlocuter of bad faith in a dialogue? a woman who dances at...

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Poetry has washed its hands off me by Nicanor Parra, Translated by T. Wignesan I don’t say I'm done with everything I don’t feel deluded in this respect I would have liked continuing to poetise but the course of inspiration has run out. Poetry has...

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Letters to an Unknown Woman by Nicanor Parra, Translated by T. Wignesan When years go by, when years go by and the air having excavated a ditch between your soul and mine, when years hurry past and I be the only man to entertain feelings of love, a being who hovered an instant in front of your lips, a poor...

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The Imaginary Man by Nicanor Parra, Translated by T. Wignesan The imaginary man lived in an imaginary house in the midst of imaginary trees on the bank of an imaginary river From walls which are imaginary hang ancient imaginary framed paintings irreparable imaginary fissures which recall imaginary events which took place in imaginary worlds in imaginary places and times Every imaginary afternoon he goes up imaginary staircases and...

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Coplas on Wine ( here, the famous AntiPoetic Chilean Poet Nicanor Parra, b. 1914, uses the more popular form of the « copla » genre that he contains in quatrains of 8 to 10 syllables with two lines of each quatrain rhyming at random, though not in perfect rhymes, in order to approximate the lilting «...

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