SOURCE: Skármeta, Antonio. “Nicanor Parra (1914-).” In Latin American Writers. Vol. 3, edited by Carlos A. Solé and Maria Isabel Abreu, pp. 1195-1200. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989.

In the following essay, Skármeta presents an overview of Parra's poetry, particularly his work in the vein of antipoetry.

Nicanor Parra was born in San Fabián, near Chillán, in southern Chile on 5 September 1914. His father was a schoolteacher; his mother came from a peasant family. Parra's sister, Violeta Parra, is an internationally known poet, composer, and singer, and his nephew and niece, Ángel Parra and Isabel Parra, are composers and authorities in the study of Latin American folklore. Parra began his study of physics and mathematics in his native Chile and completed his work in the United States (at Brown University, 1943-1945) and England (at Oxford, 1949-1951). During his residence in the United States and England he...