Selected Poems

Avant-garde poet Vicente Huidobro was born into an aristocratic family in Santiago, Chile. He is known as the creator and exponent of the literary movement called Creationism (Creacionismo), which combined aspects of modernism with neo-platonism and the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. After studying literature at the University of Chile, he lived in Paris for about ten years, where he associated with poets and artists such as Pablo Picasso, Guillame Apollinaire, and Pierre Reverdy. Huidobro returned to Chile in the mid-1920s, founded a number of magazines, and ran for the presidency of Chile, ultimately losing the campaign. His most definitive works are Altazor and Temblor de cielo (both 1931). He died in Cartagena, Chile in 1948, at the age of 56.