Tecnico

THE TECHNIQUE OF ANTIPOETRY



By Edith Grossman



The fundamental question that needs to be resolved in any approach to Parra's technique is why he invariably uses the glaringly prosaic discourse that characterizes antipoetry. There are two primary reasons for the consistent presence of colloquialisms and clichés in his writing. One grows directly out of Parra's continuingcommitment to familiar, popular speech as his expressive and descriptive medium; this consideration has been discussed in Chapter 2, "The Theory of Antipoetry." The other is intimately related to Parra's ironic and comic purposes. When Parra uses banal language and humorous turns of phrase in compositions that are essentially tragic or pathetic, he creates an irony so pervasive that it determines importantelements of structure in many of the antipoems.

Language that is not emotively congruous with the subject matter is a basic component of the structure of antipoetry. The ironic effect of prosaic language in this context underscores the differing points of view of the poem's protagonist and the reader who observes him, emphasizes the disparities between the tone of the work and its intentionand highlights the tensions between connative and denotative statements which result from those disparities. Parra wants the reader to sense the incongruity and respond to the disparate emotional tones in antipoetry. He calls his writing a poetry of "affective tones that contrast with one another"' and he aphoristically describes the technique of antipoetry as one compounded of simultaneous"laughter and tears." The theoretical poems- "Advertency al lector," for example, are documents of the delight he takes in discordant juxtapositions of serious, weighty matter and slang-ridden, banal language. The affective tones of antipoetry are the product of the intentionally inconsistent system of signs which Parra creates within each poem.

The imagery, the figures, the serious, comic, ordinary orexalted feeling of the language in a poem, the statement or perception which the poet communicates to the reader and the uniform or disparate manner in which all of these elements work together constitute a system of signs and emotive signals to the reader. The signals stimulate a visceral response that depends upon both the nature of each element in the sign system and whether each element iscongruous or incongruous with all the others. If the response which a poet desires to stimulate and his poetic statement have an emotive tone and effect. that is comparable to the various elements which produce that statement, then the sign system is straightforward and direct and the affective texture of a poem is harmonious and classically decorous.' In compositions with a uniform sign systemthere is a relatively smooth and continuous development of the theme and a steady, almost predictable movement toward its conclusion. Parra, however, creates an inconsistent sign system in the antipoems. He uses comic clichés and banalities when he writes of despair and exploits the burlesque and parody possibilities inherent in prosaic language, but behind the comically ironic mask he is in deadearnest. He intends to join the disparities, to treat pathetic themes as if they were humorous, forging a link between inconsistent signs by equating their affective impact and making a new antipoetic synthesis out of the incongruities. Parra has summarized the motivating force behind this synthesizing process with a typically sardonic and epigrammatic statement: "I think that the poet should be aspecialist in communication. Humor makes contact (with the reader) easier. Remember that it's when you lose your sense of humor that you begin to reach for your pistol" (Skarmeta, p. 38).

In antipoetry the most common objects -telephones, soda fountains, park benches, even the colloquial language in which the poems are written- although they are the ordinary artifacts of modern urban life, are...