This essay includes a compilation of statements made by members of the Tribu No, a group devoted to experimental poetry and art that was active in Chile in the late 1960s and early 1970s; it also includes statements by other individuals who were close to the group, such as Nemesio Antúnez, Alfonso Alcalde, Miguel Vicuña, Gonzalo Millán, and Antonio Skármeta. Only four of the six members of the Tribu No provided testimonies: Coca Roccatagliata, Marcelo Charlín, Claudio Bertoni, and Cecilia Vicuña (the latter two are still involved in art and poetry). In this essay, Soledad Bianchi discusses the group’s history, individual careers, and public appearances such as: the anthology Deliciosas criaturas perfumadas [Delicious Perfumed Creatures] published with Gonzalo Millán; their attendance at the Encuentro de Escritores; their participation in Museo 70, an activity organized by Antúnez at the MNBA (Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes); their appearance on Skármeta, a television program; among many others. The subjects discussed include the origin of the group and its name; referents and influences; connections to the Latin American and specifically Chilean literary fields, including several meetings with writers and painters.     

The essay “Tribu No” appeared in La memoria: modelo para armar [Memory: A Model to Assemble] (1995), the book written by the critic and academic Soledad Bianchi (b. 1948). This publication provided an overview of Chilean poetry in the 1960s and 1970s through interviews with the major figures in the field, which showed the diversity of Chilean literature at the time based on firmly-held opinions that were sometimes, but not always, in agreement, thus underscoring the subjective nature of memory. 

Based on Bianchi’s work we can state that Tribu No was an experimental group that transcended the traditional boundaries of poetry to experiment with music, visual arts, and pop culture through their appearances on television. One of the group’s best-known members was Cecilia Vicuña (b. 1948), who, in addition to her successful career as a poet, also worked in the visual arts. She came from an artistic family: her great-grandfather Carlos Lagarrigue (1858–1928), her grandmother Teresa Lagarrigue, and her aunts Teresa Vicuña (b. 1927) and Rosa Vicuña (1925–2010) were all sculptors. Her father, Carlos Vicuña (1886–1977), was a writer. Highlights from her career include Otoño y Pinturas, Poemas y Explicaciones, also known as Salón de otoño. After the coup d’état in 1973 she worked with the English independent publisher Beau Geste Press to publish Sabor a mi [Taste of Me], a bilingual book that included poems and reproductions of her paintings (of Lenin, Fidel Castro, Salvador Allende, and Violeta Parra), self-portraits, and the Ángel de la Menstruación [Angel of Menstruation]. She wrote stories about the fascist coup in Chile and the Unidad Popular socialist party. One of her most famous works of visual poetry was Palabrarmas, a piece of assembled writing that challenged the viewer. She spent most of her career away from Chile, mainly in New York, where she settled. Edited by Francisco Zegers, her first text in Chile was La Wik’uña (1990). [For more information about her work, see the following in the ICAA Digital Archive: “Suspensión y disposición en el trabajo de Cecilia Vicuña” (doc. no. 754571) by Justo Pastor Mellado, and her own essay “Rosa Vicuña” (doc. no. 765138).]