Snichimal Vayuchil or Flowery Dream is an experimental poetry workshop in bats’i k’op, or Tsotsil Maya, where writers create poetry in their own mother language and Spanish, sharing their work as a form of what they call relational poetry.
Here individual workshop members present two of their poems in English translation. You’ll find a good deal of sonic diversity, Tsostil and its twin, Spanish are used for poetic composition. This bilingualism underscores the writers’ abilities and knowledge across languages. Composing in free verse, the poets express their daily lives, painting landscapes from the urban and rural imaginaries, to share their thoughts about land, family, love, pain, death, la lucha, resistance, and many other things to give a voice to those usually denied a voice, music to the deaf, in poetic composition!
Paul M. Worley has carefully translated these poems into English and Gloria F. Chacón offsers an interpretative introduction to produce a unique volume for a global audience.
"In a very special way this poetry collection is a collective poem... Each writer presents her/his way of understanding the world to the world, having internalized the idea of writing as a way to dialogue with that world. Each poem is a verse that contributes to this collective work, the product of many hands, of many ways of thinking about the world."
Jorge Tapia. Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro
Music, voice, ceremony: our responsability of being people according the Popol Wuj. Snichimal Vayuchil resonates hundreds of years back. In offering flowery words to the ancient altars, Nezahualcoyotl’s songs resurge in the 21st century Maya youth. Closing the circle of pain and loss, this anthology is a celebration of the Maya creativity, and human resilience.
Juan G. Sánchez. University of North Carolina. Asheville
Paul Worley is an Associate Professor of Global Literature at Western Carolina University, and Editor-at-Large for Mexico at the journal of world literature in translation, Asymptote.
