“Debajo de la mierda”: The Subversive Dialogue Between Nicanor Parra and David Aniñir

Sandra Collins

doi:10.18573/japs-revesa.6

Abstract

This article explores the common quest of ecological preservation and physical continuity in the poetry of Nicanor Parra and David Aniñir Guiltraro. Both poets employ antipoetic strategies to explore the personal and social crises that are the themes of much of their work. Aniñir's Mapurbe aesthetic is a hybrid art form that simultaneously presents itself as a continuation and a rupture with traditional Mapuche literary forms, but it also is a testament to Aniñir's own commitment to the creation of a new poetics that transcends any grand narrative in keeping with Parra's antipoetic mission. Scatological and sexual imagery are often used in the deconstruction of language and societal institutions to emphasize the importance of spiritual freedom. The article concludes that the call for direct action in both poets' work stems from a desire to contest consumerist tendencies driven by the capitalist project in Chile. Reconnecting the physical with the spiritual outside the bounds of literary convention and social order, counters understandings of the world that have been heavily influenced by the Enlightenment.

Highlights

In a symposium on the legacy of Nicanor Parra in the University of Chile, Walter Höefler equated antipoetry to the “problema mapuche”, because “se adquieren tierras que ya pertenecen a alguien, pero no lo sabemos, o peor, no queremos saberlo”
Reference to the Mapuche problem on Höefler’s part is multi-layered; as well as calling to mind issues around linguistic hybridity in Chile, he invokes a fundamental dilemma at the heart of Chilean identity: the denial of the indigenous element of society, which can be traced back to the attempted genocide of the Mapuche people and subsequent usurpation of their territory carried out by the
While the elements of antipoetry are immediately evident in the free form, playfulness and language he employs—using symbols instead of words, for example (Preston 2017, 74), the motivation behind the use of such techniques has taken on a renewed vigor in the form of the hybrid Mapurbe aesthetic (Krop 2004 and 2011; Osorio Santibáñez 2009; Cárcamo-Huechante 2010; Collins 2014)

Summary

Desarte o desastre

Those “inmundos” (taken from one of Parra’s ecopoems) can be understood as both the underdogs of a capitalist system, and simultaneously as the urban, pos-tierra. This becomes more common in the poems of Haykuche (2008), where the concept of the haiku combines with “una Mirada cósmica heredada de nuestros ancestros y que se erige como una sabiduría del buen vivir o una enciclopedia para la comprensión del mundo, útil desde el territorio en que se requiera dar sentido o este impresionante caudal de potentes enseñanzas” (Víctor Huenufil Vivanco in Aniñir 2008, 4) An example of this dual function is Aniñir’s treatment of newen/kimún, which roughly translate as “energy” and “wisdom”, dualistic but complementary parts of a whole as understood from an indigenous perspective (Bacigalupo 1998; Grebe, Pacheco, and Segura 1972). The poem “Estimados alumnos” became more potent to Chileans years after it was written, as it foretold the ecological disaster that occurred in 2004 when untreated waste from a pulp mill led to the mass death of swans in the Río Cruces Sanctuary, a protected wetland near Valdivia

Conclusion

Works Cited