Poetry
Altazor, or A Voyage in a Parachute
Altazor
Vicente Huidobro · 1931
Synopsis
A long poem made up of a preface and seven cantos, written from 1919 to 1931. In the first, the longest, nearly seven hundred lines in a metaphysical tone, the poet presents himself under the name Altazor, formed from altura and azorado; the second is an ode to woman. The full title, Altazor o el viaje en paracaídas, announces a fall by parachute, which Memoria Chilena reads as the passage from a first plenitude to a fragmented identity. From the third canto on, the poem plays with language and dismantles it, until it breaks the code to which the reader is accustomed.
Context
The poem appeared in 1931 from the Compañía Iberoamericana de Publicaciones, with a portrait of the author by Picasso. Its cantos had been written over twelve years, which explains the diversity of their subjects. Critics have offered many contradictory readings of it, according to Memoria Chilena, and the Chilean national arts prize is now called the Altazor Prize. Eliot Weinberger translated it into English in 1988 in a bilingual edition; a French translation appeared from Brocéliande in 1989.
Who it is for
A long poem in seven cantos in which language gradually comes apart; translated into English and French.
Prizes and reception
For its American publisher in 1988, Graywolf Press, the great song of the century in praise of flight.