SOURCE: A review of Poemas para combatir la calvicie: Muestra de antipoesía, in World Literature Today, Vol. 69, No. 1, Winter, 1995, p. 107.

In the following review, Hill asserts that Parra's Poemas para combatir la calvicie "makes painfully clear that the antipoet's latest work does not stand up to antipoetry."

The occasion of having won a major literary award, the first Juan Rulfo Prize, is an appropriate moment to publish a retrospective collection of a poet's work. The operative premise for Poemas para combatir la calvicie, for this "sampling of antipoetry," would appear to be to provide general readers, who may have a broad appreciation of antipoetry (i.e., "conversational" poetry), with an overview of the work that set the tone in the first place. The well-known critic and writer Julio Ortega, a jury member for the prize, has collected poems that span the lifetime of Nicanor Parra's work and...