Here is a link to an anthology of English translations of work by Chilean poet and mathematician, Nicanor Parra. Some rank Nicanor Segundo Parra Sandoval (born 5 September 1914) among the most important poets of Spanish language literature. Parra describes himself as an "anti-poet," having a distaste for poetic pomp and function; after recitations he exclaims "Me retracto de todo lo dicho" ("I take back everything I said"). I posted Parra's small poem "Thoughts" here in October, 2010-- and below I offer another example of Parra's play with ideas and words and numbers:
The Last Toast by Nicanor Parra
Whether we like it or not,
We have only three choices:
Yesterday, today and tomorrow.
Showing posts with label Chile. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chile. Show all posts
Sunday, August 23, 2015
Monday, August 6, 2012
Spanish favorites
One of my favorite DC-area poet-people is Yvette Neisser Moreno -- who, besides giving us her own work, is active in translation of Spanish-language poetry into English, most recently (with Patricia Bejarano Fisher) a Spanish and English edition of Venezuelan poet Maria Teresa Ogliastri’s South Pole/Polo Sur (Settlement House, 2011). Although I have not found any mathematical poems by Moreno, I learned from an interview that the Chilean Nobelist Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) is her favorite poet and I therefore present here the geometrically vivid opening opening stanza of Part XI of Neruda's well-known long poem, The Heights of Macchu Pichu: A Bilingual Edition (The Noonday Press, 1966).
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