SOURCE: Parra, Nicanor, and Marie-Lise Gazarian Gautier. “Nicanor Parra.” In Interviews with Latin American Writers, pp. 173-97. Elmwood Park, IL: Dalkey Archive Press, 1989.

[In the following interview, Gautier and Parra discuss his later work, in particular his commitment to what he calls “eco-poetry.”]

Nicanor Parra was born on September 5, 1914, in Chillán, Chile, the land that has given birth to some of the most outstanding Latin American poets. In 1937, when he was twenty-three, he graduated in mathematics and physics from the Pedagogical Institute of the University of Chile. That same year, he was awarded Chile's Municipal Prize for his first book of poems, Cancionero sin nombre (Nameless Songs). Gabriela Mistral, his illustrious compatriot and winner of the 1945 Nobel Prize, said of him, “We have come face to face with a poet who will reach international fame.”

Nicanor Parra belongs to the Generation of 1938, which characterized itself with the following proclamation: “Fight the metaphor, death to imagery, long live concrete reality, and once again let there be clarity.”

Parra's second book, Poemas y antipoemas, 1954, appeared in English in 1967 as Poems and Antipoems. It brought about a new direction in Latin American poetry, as it was a clear break with traditional language. Poetry was no longer for the select few, but belonged to all people. The language was no longer purely poetic, it was also prosaic. His vision of the world had become global. Pablo Neruda, another great Chilean poet and winner of the 1971 Nobel Prize, said of that book, “This poetry is a delicacy of early morning gold or a fruit savored in darkness.”

Emir Rodríguez Monegal, the late Uruguayan critic, described the Chilean poet in the following words: “Nicanor Parra has reached poetic originality through the simple, and at the same time difficult, method of being himself. His poetry is anticonventional for it does not pretend to be poetry.” In his own “Manifesto,” Parra proclaimed that, “The poet is a man like any other / A mason who erects his wall / A builder of doors and windows.”

Nicanor Parra has published countless books of poetry, which have been translated into many languages. The English translations of Sermones y prédicas del Cristo de Elqui and Nuevos sermones y prédicas del Cristo de Elqui (Sermons and Homilies of the Christ of Elqui), published together in 1984, received the Richard Wilbur Prize for that year.

Among his other books are La cueca larga (The Endless Cueca Dance), 1958, which his sister Violeta set to music; Versos de salón (Sitting Room Verses), 1962; Canciones Rusas (Russian Songs), 1966; Obra gruesa (Framework), 1969; Emergency Poems, 1972; Artefactos (Artifacts), 1972; Chistes parya desorientar a la policía/poesía (Jokes to Mislead the Police/Poets), 1983; Poesía política (Political Poetry), 1984; Hojas de Parra, 1985; Antipoems: Selected and New, 1985.

Nicanor Parra has traveled throughout Europe, the Soviet Union, the Orient and both Americas, giving readings and lectures on other Latin American poets.

From 1943 to 1945, Parra studied advanced mechanics at Brown University, Rhode Island, and from 1949 to 1951 he studied at Oxford University under the cosmologist Edward Arthur Milne. In 1969, Parra won the Chilean National Prize of Literature. He is also a member of the Chilean Academy of the Language. He has served as Chairman of the Department of Physics at the University of Chile and has taught Latin American poetry at such renowned institutions as Louisiana, Columbia, Yale, Chicago, and New York Universities. At present, he no longer considers himself an antipoet but rather an eco-poet, a poet of survival. He writes against the ecological collapse and the nuclear holocaust and states: “For me, a poet is not only the voice of the tribe, it is its conscience.”

[Gazarian Gautier:] Do you see the influence of Lorca's Romancero Gitano (Gypsy Songbook) on your first work, Cancionero sin nombre?

[Parra:] Of course, on every level imaginable.

In your poem “Rompecabezas” (“Puzzle”), you say, “It is better to play the fool / and say one thing for another.” Is this interview with you going to turn into an anti-interview?

You might well think so, because I constantly alternate between sense and nonsense. I have a built-in prejudice against localizing myself at any particular point of the spectrum. This interview could very well degenerate into a damned interview.

What do you mean by “damned”?

It means just what it says—nothing more.

Chile is considered the poetic country by definition: the literary movement Modernismo originated there with the book Azul by Rubén Darío, and Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda, both Nobel laureates for poetry, were born in Chile. Why is that country so fertile for poetry?

We should add also the name of Vicente Huidobro, who ought to have received the Nobel Prize. I have thought about the question you raise more than once. Generally speaking, I think it is merely a coincidence that so many poets are Chilean. Why must we seek to impose laws on everything? But if you insist, I might speculate that Chile's geographic isolation (because of both the Cordillera and the sea) has something to do with it. It must also be noted that many excellent wines are produced in that country—so, maybe the isolation and the wine have something to do with poetic output.

There are four phases of Chilean poetry associated with four poets: Vicente Huidobro, Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda and Nicanor Parra. What does each of them represent for poetry?

Gabriela Mistral was probably the most classical poet of the four (I define classical as the balance between thought and emotion). She was a poet who had very little to do with Modernismo—she was perhaps prior to it, in my own opinion. Neruda, on the other hand, represents the culmination of this movement. It is usually said that Vicente Huidobro was the avant-garde poet by definition. The vanguard, in this sense, probably came after surrealism, which never fully convinced Huidobro. As far as I am concerned, I would like to see myself as an effort to regain the balance between reason and emotion—something which was lost in the seventeenth century with the works of Dryden and Milton, according to T. S. Eliot. Eliot thought that the last true classical poets were the metaphysical poets. If we stretch the point a little, we could say that antipoetry is really an attempt to rediscover classical poetry. In this sense, Mistral is probably closer to antipoetry than the poets who came before her, although every echo is felt in antipoetry. So, we are talking about a new classicism in which both the romantic spirit and the rupturist experience of our times have to be integrated.

Huidobro said that the poet was a little god. In your “Manifesto,” you proclaimed that “The poet is a man like any other / A mason who erects his wall / A builder of doors and windows.” What sort of poet are you now: an antipoet, an eco-poet?

I have evolved toward a poetry of global commitment, a poetry which could be called “Eco-commitment.” It calls for us to pledge ourselves to the totality of our planet, since it suffers from a chronic disease and is on the brink of death and ecological collapse. We are also facing a nuclear holocaust, so that we cannot continue to resolve problems by conventional wisdom or the rhetoric of confrontation. We have to become conscious of our situation. This is why I now prefer to call myself an eco-poet, a poet of survival. From the point of view of my daily work, I would refer to myself as a teacher of ecological literacy. I work at the University of Chile, and I don't teach theoretical physics (as I used to) or literature, except this semester when I lecture on Gabriela Mistral—my efforts are all geared to the subject of survival. Strangely enough, I have achieved a new type of social realism—the difference is that I am not concerned exclusively with the totality of the species but with the totality of the planet.

You like to walk around with a notebook under your arm. Do you see the poet as the chronicler of his time?

Yes, it is true that I walk around with a notebook; in fact, I would like to carry a tape recorder, or even a film camera with me, because poetry arises spontaneously out of dialogue and conversation. Many of the poems in my recent book, Hojas de Parra, are based on phrases I overheard and tried to reproduce as faithfully as possible. This has to do with the concept of poetry as conversation, and I am getting closer to conversation per se, because before I used to elaborate a lot on what I heard.

What is the function of the poet: to create a world, make it intelligible, destroy it or debunk it?

I must hark back to the questions of ecological collapse and survival. In these days, poets, writers and readers should all engage in a campaign for global survival—the old categories and distinctions must give way before these new priorities.

So you think we must save the world?

Yes, we must first save the planet. If we ever achieve this (and many people believe it is too late), then we may once again be able to engage in some of our prior pastimes.

You have been called a debunker of myths. Do you agree with this?

I am very happy to be the recipient of such a label, because I believe that it is ancient culture, with all its attendant paradigms, which has led the world to its present dead-end situation. I always suspected that these paradigms stank of rotting fish. The nuclear holocaust and the ecological collapse are not the results of fate. They are the fatal consequences of the two social philosophies that rule our world: capitalism, on the one hand, and socialism as it has developed.

Can you explain the following verse: “God created the world in one week, but I destroy it in one moment”?

I don't know what that verse means. I am not particularly fond of explaining jokes or poems. The joke has to make you laugh immediately and the poem has to reach the medulla instantly—if it does not, no amount of explaining is going to make any difference.

In your poem “Cambios de nombre” (“Change of Name”), you say, “Any self-respecting poet must have his own dictionary, and before I forget, even God's name will have to be changed.” What words do you have in your dictionary, and what name do you give God?

Before I answer I would like to say that one should not confuse the words of a poem with the feelings of the author. I do not identify with any poem without reservations. My work has a lot to do with the use of masks—it has a lot in common with Rimbaud in this respect. One should not think that antipoetry is a new ideology. Affirmations or negations should stand by themselves in their poetic medium; otherwise, they are completely irrelevant.

What is the language of the antipoet? Does he create a new vocabulary by destroying language so as to recreate it?

When I started writing poetry, I surmised that there were two languages: poetical language, used by poets, and ordinary language, used by people on the street. Since I couldn't find an explanation for the tremendous abyss between the two languages, I felt an obligation to destroy this separation. I believed that ordinary language was always closer to daily experience than poetic language, and that the latter often reeked of anachronisms and other deficiencies. So I thought I should attempt a poetry of the spoken language, an intuition, by the way, which was later verified a posteriori, especially upon reading Heidegger. This philosopher used to say that poetry is the essence of language. All I would add to this formula is that poetry is the essence of spoken language. Ultimately, I do not want to pronounce myself against literature because it is also a part of the human experience, and as such can be a useful starting point toward poetry. Therefore, one should not be astounded to find a cliché in the middle of a spoken poem.

What new phrases or words did you bring to poetry?

Antipoetry represents an opening to the entire dictionary. No word should be discarded out of hand. Consequently, every word is a likely candidate for a poem.

How did you manage to include clichés in poems and make them seem as if they belonged there?

It is like a collage one does based on a particular cliché. The oft-quoted phrase does not retain its individual characteristics in an antipoem, but rather achieves a peculiar effect as a part of it. It is the same as when one throws a ball at a basket—the ball has to be spun in just the right way to score the point; it cannot just be thrown any old way.

Do you have a realistic vision of the world as an antipoet or as an eco-poet?

I proceed from the assumption that all sensations, all experiences constitute a totality that has to be integrated into poetry. The task of the poet is to construct a model of the universe.

You have said that “poetry can lead a country to ruin if one is not careful with it.” Does the poet have a mission, and does his poetry have to communicate a positive message?

I now think so. As they say, the poet must not only be the voice of the tribe, but also the conscience of the tribe, especially if his country is in an ambiguous situation like that of Chile. In my country, a return to democracy is absolutely essential because without democracy nothing can be done. One cannot fight for survival, at the very least, because dictatorships, whether capitalist or socialist, do not have the means to process the facts concerning the ecological collapse or the nuclear holocaust.

In her book La poesía de Nicanor Parra, Marlene Gottlieb states that you have “achieved the liberation of poetry.” What made you break with the traditional molds of poetic language to achieve antipoetry first, and later eco-poetry?

I always thought that traditional poetry did not refer to the experiences of the ordinary man, but rather displaced these events to a special plateau. I always believed that it would be more adequate to examine and write about experiences as they are, without embellishments. If “realism” means the sort of belief I have just described, then antipoetry has more to do with it than with symbolism, for instance.

The rallying cry of the generation of 1938, to which you belong, was “Fight the metaphor, death to imagery, long live concrete reality, and once again let there be clarity.” Is this phrase representative of your poetry?

I do not work with metaphors or images; my concern is another. I do not go seeking the unknown the way Rimbaud, the symbolists, and the Modernistas did. I only want to reflect reality as it is seen by the ordinary man.

Could we then call you a poet of clarity and light?

When I was twenty and some odd years, I wrote a book, which I never published, called “La Luz del día” (The Light of Day). It is from this work that the idea of poetry of clarity came. I think you are referring to a very learned essay written long ago by the distinguished Chilean critic and poet Tomás Lago.

If we postulate two types of poetry, poetry of night and poetry of dawn, how would you compare your own poetry to Neruda's?

Neruda's poetry is more a poetry of night, as he himself said on more than one occasion. But he eventually ended up writing a poetry of dawn, like “Extravagario” and “Las odas elementales” (The Primary Odes). The situation is reversed in my own case; I started with poetry of day, poetry of dawn, but I don't want to deny the validity of shadows in poetry. A poem like “El hombre imaginario” (The Imaginary Man), for instance, is not ashamed to be both musical and symbolic.

How do you manage to juxtapose puzzles and clarity?

I am not really sure of what I do. Probably through my sense of smell, which is basic for me.

Your sense of smell more so than that of sight?

No, smell in the metaphorical sense. There is also a visual smell and an auditory smell, or we could also call it the seventh sense.

Your first poems were published in 1937 with the title of Cancionero sin nombre. Your second book, Poemas y antipoemas, appeared in 1954. Could you clarify the terms “poems” and “antipoems”?

I thought I had originated the concept of “antipoem.” I was unaware that it already existed. It came to me from reading a book by the French poet Henri Pichette, Apoèmes, which I saw in a bookstore display in Oxford in 1949 or thereabouts. I was very taken with that book, and as I have said in many interviews, the word antipoem came to mind immediately. I thought that Pichette's book would have better been titled “Antipoem,” because that word is strong and produces a more powerful impact. The term floated around my consciousness for a while, until I finally dared to use it as a title for one of my books. But I thought something should be added to “antipoems,” so I tagged on “poems.” The reason I did this is because antipoetry really has to do with contradiction; it is not satisfied with only half of reality, it must encompass the totality of experience. It is more a synthetic rather than an analytical poetry. In those days, I was a student of physics, so I would not be surprised if Bohr's atomic model had influenced me. Bohr believed that the nucleus of the atom had a positive charge, while its surrounding ring had a negative one, and people thought that the atom was the basic element of the physical world. In the same way, the spiritual world would also have positive and negative charges, thus poem and antipoem.

Do you know beforehand which of your verses will turn into a poem and which will turn into an antipoem?

Every verse is both, with a few exceptions. Some people think, for instance, that “El hombre imaginario” is more poem than antipoem, and they say this also about Canciones Rusas. In reality, I used the term antipoem in an offhand way, and as if by sleight of hand I had to carry the label like a cross all my life.

Now that you write eco-poetry, can antipoetry still be a part of it?

Yes. The basic premise of antipoetry was a categorical rejection of any dogma, except the one I am now enunciating. So, I had to work simultaneously with affirmations and negations. In this sense, antipoetry was always a Taoist poetry. It is not a coincidence that for the past ten years I have been interested in Taoist philosophy. I feel that the Tao Te Ching should be considered like a sort of primer of sight, sound and the other senses, with respect to any inner exploration. I can no longer imagine myself without this type of philosophy.

What would be the definition of an eco-poet?

The eco-poet also works with contradiction, he defends nature, but he cannot fall into the trap of a new dogmatism. So there are some eco-poems which are apparently anti-ecological, like the following: “I don't see the need for all this fuss, we all know the world is at its end.” It must be kept in mind that any type of dogmatism, including ecological dogmatism, produces a hardening of the soul. To avoid this hardening, this new dictatorship, this new central committee, one has to denounce even ecological dogmatism. Paradoxically, this is also the soul regulating itself. The man who only affirms runs the risk of freezing up inside. Constant movement, vital motion is crucially important for me.

In your “Manifesto,” you say, “The poets came down from Olympus.” Why did you feel the need to take poetry from the world of the chosen and bring it to the street?

I think traditional poetry was very elitist, as were its poets. They all had tremendous egos and a reputation as clairvoyants (remember Rimbaud's “Lettre du clairvoyant”). I felt that this approach was thoroughly undemocratic. I believe in horizontal relations rather than vertical ones.

Upon reading your book Versos de salón, the Chilean critic Hernán del Solar commented that one could not talk about your books in a soft voice: “One must scream, gesticulate, as if at the outset of a fight.” Why does your work create controversy wherever it is read?

I would say because I do not write about beauty in the traditional sense, but rather tackle reality with all its qualities and defects. There is a tendency in the arts to overlook problems, to sidestep ugliness, disagreement, nastiness. Antipoetry, however, presents both the hideousness and the beauty of the world.

Do you think that your current poetry would create the same polemics?

I don't know, we would have to consult the specialists, who are the distinguished readers.

When Gabriela Mistral read your first book, she said, “We have come face to face with a poet who will achieve international fame.” What do you think about that prophecy?

She was a very generous woman. It's all I can say.

If she could be with us this afternoon, what would you tell her?

I would invite her to join me in the crusade to save the world. I am sure she would accept unconditionally.

In 1962, Fernando Alegría wrote an article called “Nicanor Parra at the Borders of Realism.”

My poetry is real but it is also unreal. It does not want to be restricted to any particular point on the spiritual spectrum—it is very ambitious.

Alfonso Calderón wrote an article called “Nicanor Parra, a Breathing Exercise.” What is your reaction to that?

I once described a book of mine as “breathing exercises.” I have been grappling with the idea of poetry as a breathing exercise for a long time. In fact, in some of my anthologies, “Breathing Exercise” is used as the title for a group of poems. So, I am not surprised in the least.

Why “breathing,” and why “exercise”?

Breathing exercise seems like a very mysterious thing to me. Strangely enough, breathing exercise should now be applied to the planet in order for the earth to survive.

In “Advertencia al lector” (“Warning to the Reader”), you say, “And I bury my pens in the heads of the illustrious readers!” Do you think of the reader when you write, and who is the reader for you?

This question interests me greatly, as I have been very preoccupied by it lately. Poetry and antipoetry are very playful, and the games are not played alone, as this is openly frowned upon. Two people are needed to play. My relationship with the reader was always a bit playful; in fact, to use a Chilean term, it was a type of hueveo (fooling around). To fool around with the reader and provoke him out of his complacency—this is central to antipoetry. When I was a child, we used to play a lot, especially when the teachers made us single file before entering the classroom. We used to play a game called chuletas de lujo (gratuitous knocks), in which we kicked someone's behind without the teacher noticing. I always thought this game was very funny. I am always playing and provoking the reader.

So you want the reader to participate actively in your work?

Exactly, that's the idea.

Something similar to what the writers of the “Boom” did with their prose.

I really don't know much about the Boom.

You once said, “This is why I keep knocking myself out, to reach the soul of the reader.” What is your relation to the reader? Does it differ in a poem, an antipoem, and an eco-poem?

Of course. In an eco-poem the goal is to raise the awareness of the reader so he will join the ecological movement, which is defined as “a socioeconomic movement, based on the idea of harmony between human beings and their environment, which fights for a playful, creative, equalitarian, pluralistic life, free of exploitation and premised on communication and cooperation.” This quote is known as the “Slab for Salvation,” or the “Proposal of Daimiel.” Daimiel is a small village in the south of Spain, and this declaration is the work of Spanish ecologists.

What do you demand of the reader?

I push him. The idea is to force him to be attentive and to enjoy himself with the author.

Do you see poetry as an autobiographical vehicle in which you recount some anecdote or story in the first person?

It could be that as well, of course; one should not discard any method out of hand. For instance, for a period I worked with the surrealistic method of automatic writing. But I have also worked with the method of prefabricated expressions. In Los versos de salón, for example, I chose a topic and wrote down various verses as they occurred to me, and only later would I organize them. Antipoetry was a highly experimental endeavor. I must reiterate that I do not reject or deny any method out of hand.

In “Advertencia al lector,” you said, “My poetry can perfectly well lead nowhere.” Would you say the same thing this afternoon?

Absolutely not. It has to lead somewhere, it has to lead to the salvation of the planet.

In some of your poems you seem to personify poetry. For instance, “Poetry has behaved well / I have behaved horrendously / Poetry was the end of me / Poetry is done with me.”

Those verses interest me because of their ambivalence. “Poetry was the end of me / Poetry is done with me” can be interpreted in many different ways. I like this ambiguity. I succeed in breaking the strictly linear meaning of the poem. There is also the playful aspect of making these unnecessarily categorical assertions in all their uselessness.

In your poem “Es olvido” (“It's Oblivion”), you say, “Today is a blue spring day, I think I will die of poetry.” Why?

I must once again repeat that either the verse is self-explanatory or there is no explanation possible. When I say “I will die of poetry,” it seems to me that this produces an immediate effect—poetry as illness, poetry as the possibility of death. I will die of poetry as other people will die of cancer. I think that it is an interesting and significant statement.

In one poem, you say, “Free us from poets and prose writers who seek only personal fame.” In another, you state, “I swear I will never write another verse.”

Once again, I must repeat that one should not become attached to the literal meaning of the verses, and that the author should not be identified with the lyrical speaker. Perhaps the character no longer wanted to write poetry, but this might not be the author's view. It could also be that the poet was going through a bleak period, but this does not mean that it has to remain bleak forever.

Why do you write?

Because I feel the undeniable need to maintain my spirit in balance, for one thing. I think poetry and art are endeavors to maintain spiritual equilibrium. In fact, I think we will not be able to consider eliminating the arts until we achieve the perfect society.

What roles do irony and parody play in your work?

It has always been said that irony was a way to distance oneself from the world. I do not identify with Western society, nor am I one hundred percent against it. I am a sort of clown who is freed through toys such as irony and parody, which are not only the products of civilization but also the results of certain innate existential tendencies. I am referring especially to the passing of time, disease, and death. Schiller was quite right when he said man is here to be free and that man can only be free when he plays as little children do. Of course, the toys which adults play with are different from the ones children use. The toys of adults are the passage of time, love denied, diseases and death.

What are the devices needed to write a poem? How do you begin a poem?

I consider myself an experimental poet. I don't stand still on any particular spot. Sometimes I begin a poem from a phrase that I have heard somewhere; other times I begin from a reading or a dream. I am open to all possibilities.

What are you writing now?

I am writing a text and I am unsure how it will turn out. But at least I have the title, “Cueca a cámara lenta.” Cueca is a dynamic and spontaneous dance, so I am very interested in the effect of having this “dance in slow motion.” There is a previous expression, “explosion in slow motion,” but I wanted to transform this explosion into something more earthy, thus this Chilean dance in slow motion. Perhaps it is a means to demythify folkloric dancing. But at the moment I am very motivated by the title, although not exclusively. I have just completed another book, Preguntas y respuestas (Questions and Answers).

Between whom?

The characters are not defined. These are questions and answers which can be justified only within the world of words and concepts. It does not mean, in any way, that the person who answers is identifying himself. They are questions and answers in a vacuum, practically speaking.

In one poem you say, “My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth / I have an unquenchable desire to express myself / But I cannot construct a phrase.” What is the word for you?

“In the beginning there was the Word,” Saint John says somewhere. It is a way of indicating that words have indisputable importance in the lives of humans. When the word disappears, mankind will probably also vanish.

In another poem you say, “He who wants to get to paradise / From the small bourgeois has to evolve / Through road of art for art's sake / And swallow a lot of saliva.” What do you think of Modernismo and Rubén Darío's art for art's sake?

I enjoy the musicality of Verlaine, I take pleasure in the lightning of Rimbaud and the empty steps of Mallarmé. Everything is justified by its time. But I would like to reiterate that we are not here to play these kinds of games, even though antipoetry is defined as playful. The games with which we must concern ourselves now are games for survival.

Juan Ramón Jiménez once said, “I work on my poetry the way one works on God.” Gabriela Mistral wrote, “Every act of creation will leave you humbled, because it was inferior to your dream, and inferior to God's marvelous conception, Nature.” What would you say?

It gives me the shivers to use the word God. I would prefer to use the word Tao instead. When someone asked Lao Tzu what the Tao was, he shrugged and said, “I don't know, but the more we talk about it, the farther we distance ourselves from it.” There is one thing which is clear, however, the Tao seems to be prior to God. That is all I can say about God—I dare say no more. I prefer to work on the human level. I am a poet of the human more than of the divine, although God does slip in there through the back door, since he is a basic foundation of Western society, and the antipoet wants to include everything. But this does not mean that he identifies with Christianity in any way; it is just one of the tools of the trade.

Do you believe in inspiration?

Sometimes we are in the mood to write while other times we are not. If by inspiration you mean being in the mood to write a poem, then yes, I believe in it.

Do you like to polish your work?

As I said before, I have worked with all conceivable methods: I wrote the last poem of Poemas y antipoemas in fifteen minutes, using the automatic writing method, while I spent eleven years polishing the first poem of that work, which was really an infantile and trifling effort.

Do you feel humble before your work?

I don't much understand the concept of humility, but I can say that many of the works I write are far superior to their author.

Do you attach more importance to the body or to the soul?

I don't know what the difference between body and soul is; I think they are merely crutches and simplistic distinctions. I refuse to dichotomize.

Then why do you say you want “to get to the soul of the reader”?

Those are linguistic expressions that have their own charges and directions. I don't consider myself a preacher in that type of poetry; I don't even preach in Sermons and Homilies of the Christ of Elqui. I wrote that book to demonstrate the futility of preaching. Nowadays, I admit, I do nothing but preach, although in relation to the ecological collapse and the nuclear holocaust.

What inspired you to write The Christ of Elqui?

Like other writers under Chile's dictatorship, I needed to express certain things that cannot be said openly.

Is it a song to freedom then?

Absolutely not. In that book I speak through a mask. This is a device that various other authors have used. Enrique Lihn, for instance, made use of a mask which he called Gérard de Pompier. Christian Hunneus spoke through a mask called Gaspar Ruiz, and Enrique Lafourcarde spoke through a mask called Lafourchette, the Count of Lafourchette.

And in this instance, you speak through …

I am speaking through the mask of the Christ of Elqui, who was a real person, a sort of liberation theosophist who lived in Chile at the beginning of this century, and who was at the same time an illiterate and a neurotic. His name was Domingo Zárate Vega.

So he is not Christ, but the Christ of Elqui.

Yes, he is the Christ of Elqui. He let himself be called that. He was a character who was more comical than dramatic.

And how did you develop the section of questions and answers that takes place between the Christ of Elqui and Nicanor Parra?

Perhaps it was a voice … perhaps a journalist, perhaps an interviewer like you. I think that poetic content can perfectly well come from an interview.

Where did you write that poem? In Chile or abroad?

I wrote both the first and the second volumes in Chile. If you recall, that work deals with abstract topics but also with very specific subjects which have a lot to do with Chile's dictatorship.

You have also said, “The Holy Bible / is the only true book / all the others are pretty but false.”

It is a way of noting the dogmatism of religions and ideologies.

What does the Bible mean to you?

In that passage you quoted, I am merely speaking like a preacher. I am imitating him and making fun of him. But in a surreptitious way (because every mockery contains a grain of truth), there is a little ambivalence there which I find relevant.

When you say the Bible is the only book, you are really saying the opposite?

Yes and no.

What is God for you?

I don't have the God of the Christians nor any personal gods, although I have inevitably been influenced somewhat by Christianity. It has been pummeled into us so much since childhood that it would not be surprising to find an atheist all of a sudden deciding to accept the Sacrament from a Catholic priest.

Yes, but you are not an atheist.

No, I do not define myself as an atheist. I think the best way to refer to this subject is the Taoist method. So if I have to define myself on this topic, I would say I am a Taoist monk, or an apprentice Taoist monk.

Can you add something about your concept of God as Father/Mother? When you speak of God in your poem, you say, “Our Mother who art in Heaven …”

Obviously I am making a reference to the feminist movement here. Why should God have to be male? God could perfectly well be female. But I am not interested in this issue as much as with the effect that the image of a female God (to which we are not accustomed) produces on the readers. I want to stimulate and provoke them. I want to place them in unexpected situations and see how they will react.

And what does the mother mean to you?

In Sermons and Homilies of the Christ of Elqui certain views and feelings of the author become apparent. I think that the mother is such an important phenomenon that even she is not aware of its full magnitude. Before the mother dies, men tend to think of her as an object. But once she is gone, certain very mysterious signs appear—it would seem that a mother is far more than we can ever imagine!

It has been said that all poets carry within themselves the children they once were. What does childhood represent for you?

Throughout this conversation, I have referred to children's games. I use the behavior of children extensively in my work, as well as the devices of the Chilean circus, which I saw frequently as a child. I was very struck by the interaction between the mischievous clown and Tony, another character of the Chilean circus, who incarnates innocence. Good and bad are always at odds, and according to the philosophy underlying Chilean popular comedy, innocence and goodness will always prevail.

You have an excellent relationship with your children.

Let's say I have a relationship with almost all of them, although I have a great deal of trouble with one of my children, to such an extent that I can hardly talk about it.

How many children do you have?

Six.

In “Sermons and Homilies of the Christ of Elqui” you write, “Competition does not resolve anything / Because we are not racehorses / I condemn them with all my heart / In this I am intransigent.”

I identify with the Christ of Elqui there, with respect to every sort of contest or competition. I remember that in Cuba they used to speak about emulation. But I don't even believe in emulating; on this topic, I am in agreement with a basic tenet of philosophical anarchism: “From each according to his will, and to each according to his whimsy.”

What are the subjects which most concern you?

At this moment, I am most concerned with the survival of the planet—I have said this in many ways and I don't mind repeating myself in the least. What most matters to me is the health of the planet, and the prevention of an ecological collapse and a nuclear holocaust. I used to be interested in other things before, like the puzzle of passing time, diseases, love denied. But I think these are superfluous luxuries by comparison with the tremendous problems confronting us today.

How did this change in perspective come about?

In the past, we weren't aware of the condition of our planet; before the book by Rachel Carson, before the ecological alarm which was rung in the United States in the 1960s by the hippies, none of us were really aware of the condition of the earth. Every revolutionary spoke about the forces of evolution, of production; no one spoke about the forces of destruction. Everyone thought the planet was infinite with infinite resources, and with ample space to dispose of all waste products. But then, all of a sudden, we realized that the planet was finite, and our outlook changed completely. It became apparent that the earth was being transformed into a huge dumpster, and that's when the ecological alarm was rung. I was very involved in this changing awareness, as I was in the United States at the time, very close to the hippies in general and to Allen Ginsberg in particular. I took part in the Earth Day celebrations in 1970. I can remember some of the sayings scrawled on the walls like, “Be kind to me, I am a river, Clear Water Campaign.” I became aware then of the state of our world, but of course many things have happened since. It has become clear that to be able to answer the question of what must be done, almost all the paradigms of our Western society must be revised.

In “Hay un día feliz” (“There is a Happy Day”), you say: “Believe me, I never thought for an instant that I would return to this beloved country. But now that I have returned I cannot understand how I could ever separate myself from it.” What does Chile mean for you and how would you describe Chilean reality?

Chile's present situation is well known. Due to the polarization that inevitably occurs because of the rhetoric of confrontation, a particular dictatorship arose. A dictatorship would have resulted in any event. That is why I now argue for the refutation of the rhetoric of confrontation, because it inevitably leads to polarization, then to dictatorship, and finally to apocalypse.

Have you lived through the experience of exile?

I haven't had that distinction. I chose to remain in Chile, although in my country we also speak of internal exile. Obviously, I have more to do with internal exile than with the world of the Chilean establishment.

You tell of your first encounter with the sea in the beautiful poem “Se canta al mar” (“I Sing to the Sea”). What does it represent for you?

In that poem I am merely reproducing the experience I had when my father took me to the south of Chile and I first saw the sea. I was very taken in by it, and so this poem, quite simply, was the result of that first encounter.

What is the meaning of the poem “Viva la cordillera de los Andes / Muera la cordillera de la Costa!” (“Long live the Cordillera of the Andes / Death to the Cordillera of the Coast!”)?

It has none. There is no meaning there except the gratuitousness of the affirmation and the negation. I would now say that I am laughing at all dogma through those two verses.

In your poem “Solo de piano” (“Piano Solo”), you say, “Trees are nothing but furniture in motion: they are but chairs and tables in perpetual movement!” What does nature mean to you?

At that time I had nothing to do with ecology but, strangely enough, there are ecological intuitions there. From this perspective it could be described as a criticism of the capitalist concept of nature: the woods as a source of income, as the possibility of furniture. I am surprised that one can find the seeds of this idea in works written far before the ecological alarm.

Your sister Violeta defined your work La cueca larga (The Endless Cueca Dance) as “urban folklore.” Can you speak about the collaboration between the two of you?

She herself explained this in “Décimas.” Violeta was younger than I and she did not have the good fortune to be able to attend universities as I did, so I evolved far more quickly than she at the outset, on the intellectual level. I therefore put my knowledge at her disposal. Between us a sort of telepathy developed; we were like communicating vessels. In fact, one of my poems ends with the phrase, “We are the same person. Don't take me seriously, but believe me.” She also wrote a phrase which has often been repeated: “Without Nicanor, there is no Violeta.” I don't know if I could say the same thing about her, because since I was much older I saw the world long before she did. I gave her the first push, and then it turned out she had wings of her own and flew much farther than all of us put together.

Why were you awarded the National Prize of Literature in 1969?

I really wonder why.

What was your reaction?

I had a very uncivilized reaction: I rejected the diploma and the honors but I accepted the check. I argued that the prize wasn't really a prize at all; it should have really been called the National Literary Tip, because it was such a miserly award. At the time, I also said that this was merely a means by which the government attempted to repair its guilty conscience without resolving any problems. Paradoxically, it is the military dictatorship that solved a problem which Chilean democracy was never able to. Everything is so complex. The National Prize for Literature is now a lifetime pension. One must “render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's.”

Is Martín Fierro your favorite book?

I have said that on many occasions.

Is it related to La cueca larga in any way?

I would say that it is not, because one cannot hope to accomplish what Hernández did. He pumped that particular mine dry. Martín Fierro was the basis for a new world, a new universe, while La cueca larga is much more limited in scope. Quite simply, La cueca larga has to do with a local Chilean tradition; it is a series of seguidillas (popular verses) which are not even octosyllabic as is Martín Fierro. But there is some resemblance between them in the sense that they are both relatively popular forms: La cueca larga is a more direct type of poetry than Martín Fierro, which is written in sextets.

Do you have a favorite work from among all your writings?

It is usually said that my most important book is Poems and Antipoems. I also have a weakness for Versos de salón. I wrote each of those books for a specific reason. Sometimes I think that the only works that are worthy are certain brief texts like Artefactos. But these poems are far removed from me now. What happens with books is the same thing that happens with children: as time goes on they become independent of you, and you no longer identify with any of them.

Which authors do you admire?

Practically speaking, there is no author whom I do not admire. I once asked a mathematics teacher whom I respected greatly what was his opinion of certain works. Without having to refer to any of them, he simply said that there was no work which was absolutely worthless.

In “Epitafio,” you say, “I was what I was: A mixture / Of vinegar and oil / A combination of angel and beast!” In “Autoretrato” (“Self-Portrait”), you speak of your “cadaverous white cheeks.” Why do you like to create a caricature of yourself, almost as if you wanted to punish yourself?

I only have to look in the mirror.

Then you don't know how to look at yourself! You have said, “I am the Individual, capitalized.”

The capital should be replaced with a lower-case letter. Of course, I am no longer the “Individual” now; I would like to be a member of the community.

Which community?

The eco-community.

Who is Nicanor Parra?

I would really like to know. Nevertheless, when Manuel Rojas, the famous Chilean novelist, was asked about the Parra family, he said, “I thought Nicanor was the genius of the family until I met his sister Violeta, but nowadays I prefer their brother Roberto”—author of a long poem that was made into a hit play.