SOURCE: Brotherston, Gordon. “Modern Priorities.” In Latin American Poetry: Origins and Presence, pp. 169-87. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.

In the following essay, Brotherston discusses Parra's role in the development of modern Chilean poetry.

Like other Chileans of his generation, Nicanor Parra has faced the large problem of how to write at all and avoid the overwhelming influence of Neruda.¹ This explains in part the acrobatic assertiveness of his first major book Poemas y antipoemas (Poems and Antipoems, 1954). The opposition in the title is not fully reflected in the work, which mostly exposes what he calls the vices of the modern world, among them the prevalence of dream over common sense. A poem like ‘Paisaje’ (Landscape) may be unadulteratedly surreal:

¡Véis esa pierna humana que cuelga de la luna Como un árbol que crece para abajo Esa pierna temible que flota en el vacío Illuminada apenas por...