What do you think?
Rate this book
After-Dinner Declarations
Poetry. Latin American Studies. Bilingual edition. Translated from the Spanish by Dave Oliphant. Renowned Chilean "antipoet" Nicanor Parra has delivered as a series of five "verse speeches" poems that eschew literary ostentation in favor of playful, conversational musings. In a language steeped in colloquialisms, Parra's declarations employ a range of discourses in order to expose the hypocrisy of human institutions and challenge those who remain satisfied with the status quo. Parra uses his linguistic brilliance to confront the most serious problems of our ecology, human rights, and the limits of scientific knowledge. The antipoet moves from one topic to another with inventiveness, discovers for us a wealth of political, philosophical, and literary insights, as well as connections between ideas that shape our lives.
- GenresPoetry
513 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
6 people are currently reading
603 people want to read
About the author
Nicanor Parra
108 books348 followersNicanor Segundo Parra Sandoval was a Chilean poet and physicist. He was considered one of the most influential poets in the Spanish language of the 20th century, often compared with Pablo Neruda.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
![Profile Image for s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all].](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.gr-assets.com%2Fimages%2FS%2Fcompressed.photo.goodreads.com%2Fusers%2F1735525095i%2F6431467._UX200_CR0%2C11%2C200%2C200_.jpg&w=128&q=75)
April 20, 2021
An attempt at antireviewing, in memory of Mike Puma (1952-2021)
‘Everything that unites us is poetry,’ says Nicanor Parra. We breathe poetry through our being with each other. Watching the sun rise once in college, a friend pointed to the constellation of cigarette butts the group of us had spread across the stoop--soon to be tidied up, no worries--and declared “this is art”. Art, he said, is anything that has a meaning within in, no matter how abstract. If so, then poetry is the process of living into these moments of art. Often we only recognize moments as such in the retrospective, aided by nostalgia to fathom a trail of a narrative through them. Nicanor Parra was a Chilean ‘anti-poet’, beloved not only by one of my favorite writers, the great Roberto Bolaño, but also by a great friend who, ultimately, stands as poetic proof of Parra’s point. If you came for a review of Parra as a look at his words, I wrote an introduction to his worth though a review of his book Antipoems: How to Look Better and Feel Great I might direct you towards instead. In the spirit of Parra’s antipoetry, I’d like to write an antireview to capture the spirit of his words in order to process and speak about the loss of a dear friend (older GR friends may remember him), Mike Puma.
A decade ago I had just uprooted my life, had my first child, and found myself lonely working long hours in a factory on the opposite side of the state. I found goodreads to be a fun online community, especially as I had just left college and missed writing essays when I finished a book. Quite early on, Mike friended me and we quickly bonded over favorite books in the comments. Soon we were mailing each other books and I was reading favorites of his that he would recommend to me. Honestly no other source has been more fruitful for discovering authors I now consider my favorite, and through them I realized I quite enjoyed reviewing books. I have Mike to thank for a literary education, so to speak, and books quite literally brought us together as friends.
Not long after I’d replaced two wall calendars, Mike had a business trip to a nearby city so my 3 year old daughter and I met him for breakfast and we hung out later again that evening. From here, the two of us began a friendship of occasional train trips to Chicago to hang out, see museums and even attend a six hour stage production of Bolaño’s 2666. Through the year Mike always sent books to me (also once a banjo which I’ve been rocking some serious Kermit the Frog’s Rainbow Connection on to my children for years) as well as small gift’s for Tilly when he would travel, and he never forgot her birthday. A photo of Mike and Tilly hung on his refrigerator last I was there, and he was such an excellent sort of uncle to her and friend to me.
I was even sent on a work trip to Springfield, Illinois to attend a week long coffee maker repair certification because my job as a bulk coffee delivery driver spending my weeks on the road throughout the midwest apparently wasn’t enough and I would now be an on-call repair man or do plumbing at new cafes on our account. Thanks, guys, that sucked. Anyways, Springfield happened to be where Mike and his partner Matt lived. I spent a week with them. If Mike were to comment I’m sure he’d tell you about the first night when he took me to his favorite Thai food place and I tried and failed miserably to match his spice level in the soup we ordered. Mike being ever the amazing host knew I was into trying beers and found the place with the biggest tap list for us to have dinner at one night. And this is poetry right here. The beer I ordered ended up being out, but the server returns cradelling a bottle all excited saying ‘but instead you should try this, it’s this amazing beer from a little place called New Holland” and while I said thank you and acted excited because I’m a pushover and just enjoy seeing people have their recommendation be valued, I nearly fell over laughing moments later explaining to Mike that he’s been to New Holland, it’s the brewery that is quite literally on the street I live on where we hung out the first time we met.
On the last day of my trip, naturally, Mike loaded me down with books to take home. Nicanor Parra’s collected poems was one of them.
I should back up here because a common friendly dispute we would have was that I loved poetry and Mike, well... Mike wouldn’t choose it over a bad novel. I was at an age where you begin to assume that the natural progression from feeling like a good reader is to decide you must also write. I now see it more as adjacent, not unlike the Mitch Hedberg joke asking a master chef “alright, you can cook...can you farm?”, but at the time I began to really invest my time into writing poetry and reading more and more poets. Puma, being the wise and kind person he was, tried to also read more poetry. Much didn’t take, but Puma would read any author Bolano name-dropped in his novels and discovered he did in fact enjoy some Parra. Who wouldn’t honestly though, Parra is sharp, funny, believes nothing is sacrosanct, and beautiful, and Mike being one for humor and sarcasm finally found a poet to try and discuss poetry with me. Well, and also be the first to discover and recommend because we always were in a friendly yet strangely competitive and petty-for-laughs race to find the coolest author neither of us had heard of and then recommend it to the other (he definitely racked up more points than me, I’ll admit it but only because this is in honor of his life and legacy).
So Puma lends me this book, which I now really treasure since in the back he’s written the page numbers of his favorites. About a year later I began a poetry project leaving poems behind on trees. One night I pull this book down off the shelf, write out a poem from it and with drunken confidence tape it onto the landmark statue of the college just down the street from me. This Parra poem would be seen by my now-partner on a brief visit back home from Ireland, who photographed it, put it on instagram, tagged me and the rest is history for another time. Puma, Parra, my partner and myself orbit through the uniting element of poetry. A year after that Puma would be one of the people at our small wedding.
It seemed years were going to go by with us all being these cool and modern long distance friends where trains were part of the excitement in seeing one another--such as a meet-up in St. Louis to see Mike’s favorite band--but the years ended up being shorter than I could have imagined. After a long and complicated illness, Mike passed last friday. It really hit me, but don’t worry I’ll spare you any mortality and loss philosophizing. Mike wouldn’t have dug that anyways. But it’s hard not to look back over your last interactions, reading texts now thinking how at the time you had no idea it would be the last. The last time I saw Mike was in 2019 as I took him to the train station in Holland and saw him off back home at dawn. Earlier I painted a picture, wrote the Parra quote “everything that unites us is poetry”, and left it at the train station.
Mike was an amazing friend, someone very kind. There’s a Bolano short story, Sensini about a young short story writer who befriends an established but aging short writer and the two of them exchange letters over the course of a few years, encouraging each other to write. At the end, Sensini’s daughter shows up at the narrator’s apartment needing a place to crash for the night on her travels. She’s just seen his address in the letters her father had--hough he is now passed away which is news to the narrator. In the final scene, realizing the woman before him is the grown up version of a young girl he’s seen in an old photograph Sensisi sent him, the narrator realizes he himself is growing older. I first read this story in a copy of Last Evenings on Earth that Puma had sent me, reading it outside before going to the ceremony for a marriage that lasted barely longer than the time it took to read Gravity's Rainbow. I instantly thought of Puma while reading the story, and have reread it several times and always thought of it as a fun literary tie to our friendship. Except here I am now realizing time is moving forward and my friend has passed on. It looks a little bit emptier when I gaze down the train tracks now. I miss you, buddy, thanks for all the poetry.
‘Everything that unites us is poetry,’ says Nicanor Parra. We breathe poetry through our being with each other. Watching the sun rise once in college, a friend pointed to the constellation of cigarette butts the group of us had spread across the stoop--soon to be tidied up, no worries--and declared “this is art”. Art, he said, is anything that has a meaning within in, no matter how abstract. If so, then poetry is the process of living into these moments of art. Often we only recognize moments as such in the retrospective, aided by nostalgia to fathom a trail of a narrative through them. Nicanor Parra was a Chilean ‘anti-poet’, beloved not only by one of my favorite writers, the great Roberto Bolaño, but also by a great friend who, ultimately, stands as poetic proof of Parra’s point. If you came for a review of Parra as a look at his words, I wrote an introduction to his worth though a review of his book Antipoems: How to Look Better and Feel Great I might direct you towards instead. In the spirit of Parra’s antipoetry, I’d like to write an antireview to capture the spirit of his words in order to process and speak about the loss of a dear friend (older GR friends may remember him), Mike Puma.
A decade ago I had just uprooted my life, had my first child, and found myself lonely working long hours in a factory on the opposite side of the state. I found goodreads to be a fun online community, especially as I had just left college and missed writing essays when I finished a book. Quite early on, Mike friended me and we quickly bonded over favorite books in the comments. Soon we were mailing each other books and I was reading favorites of his that he would recommend to me. Honestly no other source has been more fruitful for discovering authors I now consider my favorite, and through them I realized I quite enjoyed reviewing books. I have Mike to thank for a literary education, so to speak, and books quite literally brought us together as friends.
Not long after I’d replaced two wall calendars, Mike had a business trip to a nearby city so my 3 year old daughter and I met him for breakfast and we hung out later again that evening. From here, the two of us began a friendship of occasional train trips to Chicago to hang out, see museums and even attend a six hour stage production of Bolaño’s 2666. Through the year Mike always sent books to me (also once a banjo which I’ve been rocking some serious Kermit the Frog’s Rainbow Connection on to my children for years) as well as small gift’s for Tilly when he would travel, and he never forgot her birthday. A photo of Mike and Tilly hung on his refrigerator last I was there, and he was such an excellent sort of uncle to her and friend to me.
I was even sent on a work trip to Springfield, Illinois to attend a week long coffee maker repair certification because my job as a bulk coffee delivery driver spending my weeks on the road throughout the midwest apparently wasn’t enough and I would now be an on-call repair man or do plumbing at new cafes on our account. Thanks, guys, that sucked. Anyways, Springfield happened to be where Mike and his partner Matt lived. I spent a week with them. If Mike were to comment I’m sure he’d tell you about the first night when he took me to his favorite Thai food place and I tried and failed miserably to match his spice level in the soup we ordered. Mike being ever the amazing host knew I was into trying beers and found the place with the biggest tap list for us to have dinner at one night. And this is poetry right here. The beer I ordered ended up being out, but the server returns cradelling a bottle all excited saying ‘but instead you should try this, it’s this amazing beer from a little place called New Holland” and while I said thank you and acted excited because I’m a pushover and just enjoy seeing people have their recommendation be valued, I nearly fell over laughing moments later explaining to Mike that he’s been to New Holland, it’s the brewery that is quite literally on the street I live on where we hung out the first time we met.
On the last day of my trip, naturally, Mike loaded me down with books to take home. Nicanor Parra’s collected poems was one of them.
I should back up here because a common friendly dispute we would have was that I loved poetry and Mike, well... Mike wouldn’t choose it over a bad novel. I was at an age where you begin to assume that the natural progression from feeling like a good reader is to decide you must also write. I now see it more as adjacent, not unlike the Mitch Hedberg joke asking a master chef “alright, you can cook...can you farm?”, but at the time I began to really invest my time into writing poetry and reading more and more poets. Puma, being the wise and kind person he was, tried to also read more poetry. Much didn’t take, but Puma would read any author Bolano name-dropped in his novels and discovered he did in fact enjoy some Parra. Who wouldn’t honestly though, Parra is sharp, funny, believes nothing is sacrosanct, and beautiful, and Mike being one for humor and sarcasm finally found a poet to try and discuss poetry with me. Well, and also be the first to discover and recommend because we always were in a friendly yet strangely competitive and petty-for-laughs race to find the coolest author neither of us had heard of and then recommend it to the other (he definitely racked up more points than me, I’ll admit it but only because this is in honor of his life and legacy).
So Puma lends me this book, which I now really treasure since in the back he’s written the page numbers of his favorites. About a year later I began a poetry project leaving poems behind on trees. One night I pull this book down off the shelf, write out a poem from it and with drunken confidence tape it onto the landmark statue of the college just down the street from me. This Parra poem would be seen by my now-partner on a brief visit back home from Ireland, who photographed it, put it on instagram, tagged me and the rest is history for another time. Puma, Parra, my partner and myself orbit through the uniting element of poetry. A year after that Puma would be one of the people at our small wedding.
It seemed years were going to go by with us all being these cool and modern long distance friends where trains were part of the excitement in seeing one another--such as a meet-up in St. Louis to see Mike’s favorite band--but the years ended up being shorter than I could have imagined. After a long and complicated illness, Mike passed last friday. It really hit me, but don’t worry I’ll spare you any mortality and loss philosophizing. Mike wouldn’t have dug that anyways. But it’s hard not to look back over your last interactions, reading texts now thinking how at the time you had no idea it would be the last. The last time I saw Mike was in 2019 as I took him to the train station in Holland and saw him off back home at dawn. Earlier I painted a picture, wrote the Parra quote “everything that unites us is poetry”, and left it at the train station.
Mike was an amazing friend, someone very kind. There’s a Bolano short story, Sensini about a young short story writer who befriends an established but aging short writer and the two of them exchange letters over the course of a few years, encouraging each other to write. At the end, Sensini’s daughter shows up at the narrator’s apartment needing a place to crash for the night on her travels. She’s just seen his address in the letters her father had--hough he is now passed away which is news to the narrator. In the final scene, realizing the woman before him is the grown up version of a young girl he’s seen in an old photograph Sensisi sent him, the narrator realizes he himself is growing older. I first read this story in a copy of Last Evenings on Earth that Puma had sent me, reading it outside before going to the ceremony for a marriage that lasted barely longer than the time it took to read Gravity's Rainbow. I instantly thought of Puma while reading the story, and have reread it several times and always thought of it as a fun literary tie to our friendship. Except here I am now realizing time is moving forward and my friend has passed on. It looks a little bit emptier when I gaze down the train tracks now. I miss you, buddy, thanks for all the poetry.
Read
April 11, 2019
Nicanor Parra from Chile considered himself not a poet but an anti-poet since he eschewed all the pomp and circumstance frequently associated with poetry. After his public anti-poetry readings, Nicanor Parra would shout: "Me retracto de todo lo dicho." ("I take back everything I said.")
I discovered Nicanor Parra and his anti-poetry from reading Roberto Bolaño. Thanks, Roberto! I just liked the sound of someone being an anti-poet and writing anti-poetry.
And being an anti-poet must be good for the health as Nicanor Parra lived to be 103 (he died this past January).
So, I picked up his After-Dinner Declarations. Loved it! Long live anti-poetry!
Here are a batch of Nicanor Parra anti-poems from the collection along with my very modest anti-comments:
SILENCE SHITHEAD
2000 years of lying is enough!
-----------Not quite sure what Nicanor was thinking when he came up with 2000 years. Perhaps it has something to do with the so-call "Axial Age."
ART OF POETRY 1
1% inspiration
2% perspiration
& the rest . . .
luck
-----------Nicanor's takeoff from Thomas Alva Edison's famous: "Success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration." Nicanor hits the bull's-eye. Lucky guy! One of the benefits of being an anti-poet!
SON DON'T GO ON BEATING YOUR HEAD AGAINST A WALL
His lady mother used to tell him
Poetry no one reads
It doesn't matter if it's good or bad
------------- Sad but true. I know in my home country of the US, Mom and Dad fear one thing above all: having their daughter or son say: "I want to be a poet and make my living writing poetry."
LITERAL WORDS
Whoever may have thoroughly studied
The real world
Cannot help but become a communist
Whoever may have thoroughly studied
The communist party
Cannot help but become an anarchist
Believe me
Not to be an idealist at 20
Is not to have a heart
To go on being one at forty
Is not to have a head
--------------- Tell it like it is, Nicanor! But what are you at 100, Nicanor? Perhaps a 100% anti-poet!
TOO MANY STARS
The Creator overdid it
Half as many would have been more than enough
-------------Nicanor would know. After all, the anti-poet was also a physicist. Even as a non-physicist I tend to agree. All those stars. Much better to have only a few billion stars and planets but be able to contact other intelligent lifeforms now and then.
WHAT IS POETRY?
Existence based on the word
Poetry are you
Everything that moves is poetry
What doesn't change places is prose
But what is poetry
Everything that unites us is poetry
only prose can keep us apart
Yes but what is poetry
Life in words
An enigma that refuses to be deciphered by professors
A bit of truth and an aspirin
Antipoetry are you
----------------Anti-poetry for one and for all! I can click with Nicanor that poetry is a bit of truth and an aspirin.
THE END OF HISTORY
I don't know
How is something going to end
When it hasn't even begun . . .
-------------------- Bravo, Nicanor! Thanks again, Roberto, for leading me to a new voice from Chile.
June 6, 2017
Debe ser la inteligencia una de las formas más alegres del espíritu: feliz en su existencia de paradojas y contradicciones, ante todo juego y broma frente a la evidencia, cada vez más rotunda, del camino autodestructivo de la especie humana. Debe ser la inteligencia algo similar a la carcajada del sabio bailando sobre el barco hundiéndose; o la sonrisa de Sócrates al entregar el dinero para pagar sus deudas en víspera de su muerte.
Una felicidad similar, una tristísima alegría, es lo que queda después de leer a Nicanor Parra. En estos "discursos" aparecen los rasgos de su antipoesía, el poeta desciende del olimpo y hace crítica literaria, activismo político, apología y comentario de prensa. Todo atravesado, siempre, por esa astucia de gato culto, por esa imparable inteligencia fiestera.
El libro reúne cinco discursos donde lo primero común es el reconocimiento de lo aleatorio que resulta cualquier tipo de reconocimiento:
Parra no se cree ni el premio Juan Rulfo, ni el doctorado honoris causa, ni el Premio Luis Oyarzún. Tampoco cree del todo en conmemorar el día del idioma, o en hacerle festividades a la figura de Huidobro. Parra parece desconfiar del alcance todopoderoso de las artes y las letras, reclama una forma distinta de ser en el mundo, de ejercer la creación y el ingenio. Tampoco, sin embargo, cae en el pesimismo o en nihilismo: hay una cierta fe en lo bello y en lo espontáneo.
Y hay amor a la literatura. Al menos dos poemas en el libro son transcripciones de pasajes famosos de Shakespeare y Pessoa (digo "al menos" porque quien sabe cuántas referencias se me escapan), y pese al tono lúdico, a la burla implícita siempre en Parra, se adivina también el cariño. Por ellos y por Borges, y por Rulfo, y por Neruda (¡carajo!), y por Mistral, y por Huidobro.
No sé. Es reconfortante leer a Parra. De cierto modo enseña. De cierta manera muestra que puede vivirse la literatura, la inteligencia y la vida desde otras costas. Que con todo perdido, nos queda ponerle buena cara.
Una felicidad similar, una tristísima alegría, es lo que queda después de leer a Nicanor Parra. En estos "discursos" aparecen los rasgos de su antipoesía, el poeta desciende del olimpo y hace crítica literaria, activismo político, apología y comentario de prensa. Todo atravesado, siempre, por esa astucia de gato culto, por esa imparable inteligencia fiestera.
El libro reúne cinco discursos donde lo primero común es el reconocimiento de lo aleatorio que resulta cualquier tipo de reconocimiento:
ARTE POÉTICA I
1% de inspiración
2 de transpiración
& el resto...
suerte (99)
Parra no se cree ni el premio Juan Rulfo, ni el doctorado honoris causa, ni el Premio Luis Oyarzún. Tampoco cree del todo en conmemorar el día del idioma, o en hacerle festividades a la figura de Huidobro. Parra parece desconfiar del alcance todopoderoso de las artes y las letras, reclama una forma distinta de ser en el mundo, de ejercer la creación y el ingenio. Tampoco, sin embargo, cae en el pesimismo o en nihilismo: hay una cierta fe en lo bello y en lo espontáneo.
Y hay amor a la literatura. Al menos dos poemas en el libro son transcripciones de pasajes famosos de Shakespeare y Pessoa (digo "al menos" porque quien sabe cuántas referencias se me escapan), y pese al tono lúdico, a la burla implícita siempre en Parra, se adivina también el cariño. Por ellos y por Borges, y por Rulfo, y por Neruda (¡carajo!), y por Mistral, y por Huidobro.
No sé. Es reconfortante leer a Parra. De cierto modo enseña. De cierta manera muestra que puede vivirse la literatura, la inteligencia y la vida desde otras costas. Que con todo perdido, nos queda ponerle buena cara.
July 24, 2009
Entre más leo a Parra más me gusta. Este libro, de distintos discursos, hacen de los discursos pura poesía, como todo lo que toca Parra. Su forma de usar el lenguaje, los personajes, hasta la poesía misma, o los poetas y escritores (como Huidobro, Rulfo, Borges, Pablo Neruda, Gabriela Mistral) , y cualquier referencia que quiera, desde política hasta derechos humanos, es unica.
Seguiré cazando libros suyos, tan difíciles de conseguir por estas tierras. Arriba Parra!
"Arte Poética I"
1% de inspiración
2 de trsanspiración
& el resto...
suerte
Lo amo!
Seguiré cazando libros suyos, tan difíciles de conseguir por estas tierras. Arriba Parra!
"Arte Poética I"
1% de inspiración
2 de trsanspiración
& el resto...
suerte
Lo amo!
February 8, 2018
No soy lector de poesía y debo reconocer que no entiendo mucho de eso (lo que no necesariamente debe implicar que entiendo algo de otro tipo de literatura), pero este libro de Nicanor Parra, que pensé estaba escrito en prosa, como "verdaderos discursos", me sorprendió pues son discursos escritos en verso y con títulos en cada página...! Es un libro de poemas que al leerse de corrido hilvanan un discurso (cinco distintos, en realidad) que es al mismo tiempo entretenido y novedoso. No sé si es poesía (¿sólo porque está escrito en verso?) pero me pareció interesante y me hizo ir a buscar otros libros de poesía de él y Huidobro que tal vez me abran un mundo hasta ahora inexplorado...
May 8, 2018
LA HISTORIA LO ABSOLVERA
De acuerdo
Pero la geografía lo dudo
De acuerdo
Pero la geografía lo dudo
November 10, 2008
Being a huge influence on me, I was excited to get my hands on an advanced reading copy of Dave Oliphant's translation of Parra's "After Dinner Declorations." I was wondering, but it is true the emergency poet is digesting, the anti poet lives and I have only just begun lauging...just incase anyone is keeping tabs, I expect to finish this book...but in the mean time a quote to hold you over: "As for myself/I'm a compulsive illiterate"
August 4, 2009
probably not the best Parra to start with.
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyroba...
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyroba...
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews