A review by janmartinek
AntiPoems: New and Selected by Nicanor Parra

5.0

Good book to read while staying up at night due to unstoppable coughing — you'll cough even more, but the night gets remembered for something else. Strong, emotionally dense and unpretentious, plain and pictorial, modest and brutal at the same time. Full of humor and sarcasm, and also mocking the sarcasm itself.

Several different styles, from the short (the introduction says „graffiti-like“) to the epic poems in scale, though united by simple narration and topics of people, society, religion, politics… I'm just picking few of those most likeable/shareable as examples.

XII

It isn't easy for me to feel sad
To be honest
Even skulls make me laugh.
The poet asleep on the cross
Greets you with tears of blood.

XIII

The poet's job is
To improve on the blank page
I don't think that's possible.

…

Good News!
in a million years the earth
will be whole again
We'll be the ones long gone