Ars Poetica

Found in the 1916 volume El espejo de agua (The Mirror of Water), “Arte poética” (“Ars Poetica”) expresses both Vicente Huidobro’s artistic vision and his concept of the poet. It is one of his best-known shorter poems.

Founder of his own literary movement, Creationism, Huidobro imbued the poet with radical tendencies and tremendous power. “Que el verso sea como una llave / Que abra mil puertas” (Let poetry be like a key / Opening a thousand doors), Huidobro says in the opening lines of Arte poética. Poetry, Huidobro suggests in keeping with his own philosophies, should be generative and exploratory, the key not to the known, but to the unknown. He advises the poet to seek out new worlds, but to exercise caution; poetry has the ability to create—and to kill. Thus, poetry is possessed of real power: not just the power of the imagination, but the power to transform reality.

Huidobro, however, is intent on shifting the location of reality. Recognizing that his is a generation of “nervios,” or nerves, Huidobro emphasizes in contrast a mental or spiritual strength: “El vigor verdadero / Reside en la cabeza” (True vigor / Resides in the head). The age of the purely physical muscle, he claims, is dead: “El músculo cuelga, / Como recuerdo, en los museos” (The muscle hangs, / Like a memory, in museums). The poet is the logical inheritor of Huidobro’s vision of power. Possessed of a kind of ultimate mental strength or vigor, the poet has the ability not only to explore experience, but to create it. Only in the poet’s imaginative power, Huidobro says, are all things possible: “Sólo para nosotros / Viven todas las cosas bajo el Sol” (For us alone / Do all things live beneath the Sun).

The poem’s last line, however, is its most telling. In words perfectly evocative of Huidobro’s concept of a poet, he claims, “El poeta es un pequeño Dios” (The poet is a little God). With supreme confidence, Huidobro elevates the poet to godlike status as both a creator and a destroyer, defining him or her as a shaper of both interior and exterior reality.

Works Cited
Huidobro, Vicente. The Selected Poetry of Vicente Huidobro. Translated by Stephen Fredman and David M. Guss, New Directions, 1981.

Categories: British Literature, Chilean Literature, Literature

Tags: academic article vicente huidobro, ars poetica interpretation, arte poética criticism, arte poética plot summary, arte poética vicente huidobro analysis, creationism in poetry, creationism poetry meaning, early 20th century chilean poetry, el espejo de agua analysis, huidobro artistic vision, huidobro poetic philosophy, huidobro small god quote, modernist poetry latin america, poet as god concept, poetic imagination huidobro, poetic power huidobro, poetry as imagination, poetry as transformation, spanish avant-garde poetry, spanish poetry criticism, the poet as creator, vicente huidobro ars poetica themes, Vicente Huidobro biography, vicente huidobro literary movement, vicente huidobro literary style, vicente huidobro poem summary, vicente huidobro themes