Unemployed Poems

Even more so than fruit and copper, poetry is miraculously profuse in Chile, which makes us demanding as readers almost without realizing it. UNEMPLOYED POEMS is already a small classic in this country saturated with brilliance and poetic tradition, and it excels in the execution of one of the most sophisticated and subtle literary tricks of our time: its extreme apparent simplicity.--Andrea Palet

The marked preference for establishing oneself in a local universe (the organ player in the plaza, the kids in the pool), along with the adherence to a concise and fragmentary verse that speaks as much through what it leaves out as through what it says, does not necessarily imply the atomization of experience or suggest that what is represented is the postcard of an exotic and far-away destination. Rather, it speaks to the obvious exclusions that can be attributed to the neoliberal system, as well as the contra-hegemonic forces opposed to it. In addition, as we have previously pointed out, it is possible to imagine a desire for transcendence in the narrator of this book, since his own conditions of existence are implicitly condemned, both in the silence presented in the slimness of the volume and in the explicit content of his discourse. Although not mentioned anywhere, it is through contrast that these UNEMPLOYED POEMS create a case against contemporary Chile, with its unequal distribution of income and its permanent eagerness to exhibit itself.--Cristi n G mez Olivares