Nicanor Parra

Nicanor Parra
Born	September 5, 1914(1914-09-05) (age 97) San Fabián, Chile
Occupation	Poet and Teacher Physicist
Language	Spanish
Nationality	Chilean
Education	Ph.D in Physics
Alma mater	University of Chile
Genres	Poetry,
Notable work(s)	Poemas y antipoemas
Notable award(s)	Cervantes Prize National Prize for Literature
Children	Catalina Parra, Colombina Parra, Juan de Dios Parra

Nicanor Parra Sandoval (born September 5, 1914) is a mathematician and poet born in San Fabián de Alico, Chile, who has been considered to be a popular poet in Chile with enormous influence and popularity in Latin America, and also considered one of the most important poets of the Spanish language literature. He describes himself as an "anti-poet," due to his distaste for standard poetic pomp and function—after recitations he would exclaim Me retracto de todo lo dicho, or, "I take back everything I said".

Life

Parra comes from the artistically prolific Chilean Parra family of performers, musicians, artists, and writers. His sister, Violeta Parra, is possibly the most important folk singer the nation has produced.

Nicanor Parra was born in 1914 near Chillán, a city in southern Chile, the son of a schoolteacher. In 1933, he entered the Instituto Pedagógico of the University of Chile, and qualified as a teacher of mathematics and physics in 1938, one year after his first book appeared: Cancionero sin Nombre. After teaching in Chilean secondary schools, he went in 1943 to Brown University in the U.S. to continue his studies in physics. and then he went in 1948 to Oxford in England to study cosmology. He returned to Chile as professor at the University in 1946. Since 1952, Parra has been professor of theoretical physics in Santiago and has read his poetry in England, France, Russia, Mexico, Cuba, and the United States. He has published several books.

Trying to get away from the conventions of poetry, Parra's poetic language renounces the refinement of most Latin American literature and adopts a more colloquial tone. His first collection, Poemas y Antipoemas (1954) is a classic of Latin American literature, one of the most influential Spanish poetry collections of the twentieth century, and is cited as an inspiration by American Beat writers such as Allen Ginsberg.

Awards

Parra has been nominated several times for the Nobel Prize in Literature.^{[citation needed]}

On December 1, 2011, Parra won the Cervantes Prize from Spain's Ministry of Culture, widely considered the most important literary prize in the Spanish-speaking world.

List of works

• Cancionero sin nombre (Songbook without a Name), 1937.
• Poemas y antipoemas (Poems and Antipoems), 1954; Nascimento, 1956; Cátedra, 2005, ISBN 9788437607771
• La cueca larga (The Long Cueca), 1958.
• Versos de salón (Parlor Verses), 1962.
• Manifiesto (Manifesto), 1963.
• Canciones rusas (Russian Songs), 1967.
• Obra gruesa (Thick Works), 1969.
• Los profesores (The Teachers), 1971.
• Artefactos (Artifacts), 1972.
• Sermones y prédicas del Cristo de Elqui (Sermons and Teachings of the Christ of Elquí), 1977.
• Nuevos sermones y prédicas del Cristo de Elqui (New Sermons and Teachings of the Christ of Elquí), 1979.
• El anti-Lázaro (The Anti-Lazarus), 1981.
• Plaza Sésamo (Sesame Street), 1981.
• Poema y antipoema de Eduardo Frei (Poem and Antipoem of Eduardo Frei), 1982.
• Cachureos, ecopoemas, guatapiques, últimas prédicas, 1983.
• Chistes para desorientar a la policía (Jokes to Confuse the Police), 1983.
• Coplas de Navidad (Christmas Couplets), 1983.
• Poesía política (Political Poetry), 1983.
• Hojas de Parra (Grape Leaves / Pages of Parra (Spanish pun)), 1985.
• Nicanor Parra: biografía emotiva (Nicanor Parra: Emotional Biography), Ediciones Rumbos, 1988
• Poemas para combatir la calvicie (Poems to Combat Baldness), 1993.
• Páginas en blanco (White Pages), 2001.
• Lear Rey & Mendigo (King Lear and the Beggar), 2004.
• Obras completas I & algo + (Complete Works and More), 2006.
• Discursos de Sobremesa, 2006, transl. Dave Oliphant, After Dinner Declarations, Host Publications, Inc., 2009.

English translations

• Poems and antipoems: Edited by Miller Williams. Translators: Fernando Alegría and others. New Directions Pub. Corp., 1967
• Nicanor Parra: Poems and Antipoems, ed. David Unger, New Directions, 1985, ISBN 9780811209595
• Antipoems: how to look better & feel great. Translator Liz Werner. New Directions Publishing. 2004. ISBN 9780811215978. http://books.google.com/books?id=GUExp_HZBucC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Nicanor+Parra&hl=en&ei=zXrZTvr2BqT1sQKInsCBDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false. 
• After-dinner declarations. Translator Dave Oliphant. Host Publications, Inc.. 2009. ISBN 9780924047633. http://books.google.com/books?id=d-2WRDHZILIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Nicanor+Parra&hl=en&ei=zXrZTvr2BqT1sQKInsCBDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false. 

External links

• Nicanor Parra Official Web Site
• Nicanor Parra website at the Universidad de Chile
• Nicanor Parra: De los Antipoemas a los Artefactos Dramáticos - Madrid
• La Antipoesía de Parra y el lenguaje del artefacto UNESCO
• El Proyecto de la Antipoesía de Nicanor Parra
• Nicanor Parra en Biblioteca Virtual Cervantes
• Nicanor Parra: Antipoemas, parodias y lenguajes híbridos. De la Antipoesía al lenguaje del Artefacto | Premio Cervantes 2011 - Universidad Complutense de Madrid - UCM - PDF Adolfo Vásquez Rocca PH.D.