Nicanor Parra, the Chilean Antipoet

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC | In 1954 the Chilean poet Nicanor Parra published Poems and Antipoems, a polemical volume that coined and popularized the term antipoetry and ultimately revolutionized Latin American poetry. Parra was determined to bring poetry down from the privileged muses of Mount Olympus and return it to the everyday lives and speech of the people. No longer is the poet a seer and a solemn prophet but just a common person who with biting humor and irony points out the hypocrisy of society in all its facets and norms: love, religion, economics, politics, and values. 

In this talk, Dr. Marlene Gottlieb will discuss the meaning of the term antipoetry, its evolution and its legacy for Latin American and world poetry. Marlene Gottlieb is a Professor of Spanish and Chair of the Department of Modern Languages & Literatures at Manhattan College. She is a professor emerita of CUNY and of the doctoral faculty at the CUNY Graduate Center. Dr. Gottlieb’s area of expertise is contemporary Latin American poetry. She is the author of several books on the poetry of Nicanor Parra as well as numerous articles on Neruda, Mistral, Lihn, Borges, Vallejo, and Cardenal, among others.