“Old Feedsack Rag Balls” by ‘Playingwithbrushes’ is licensed under CC BY 2.0
In Ak’abal’s poems, each line is worth a thousand words. There is often a metric ton of subtext/context that is contained within these poems, especially if you can recognize his history both as a poet and the history of his people. To achieve this, Ak’abal uses a substantial amount of literary and rhetorical devices to help him convey his messages. For example, “they hurt, / they hurt” is a form of repetition in Pain, while “weight of poverty, / of indifference, / of injustice” in 500 Years is an example of Anaphora – where a poem repeats the same phrase at the beginning of each line (Ak’abal Pain, lines 3-4 | Ak’abal 500 Years, lines 3-6 ). Pain is a masterful poem, it conveys many words with very few; the repetition in Pain emphasizes and exaggerates how much pain the people are suffering due to “misery / [and] poverty” (Ak’abal Pain, lines 1-2). The pain that is caused by being abandoned by the colonists and the government. These two words, misery and poverty, by itself, can cause a startling image to form in ones mind. This is further illustrated in the next lines of Pain, where the Mayan and Indigenous people were so demoralized that they would rather be “a piece of rag” – an inanimate object (Ak’abal Pain, lines 5-6)! Thus, this demonstrates what they were going through – their wills were reduced to nothing more than the tattered cloth of a peasant or slave. However, even with their battered and withered wills, they still want to “be useful [like a patch]” to other people (Ak’abal Pain, lines 7-8). A patch that could mend wounds, correct errors, or even hastily repair what has been lost. Ak’abal is establishing that THIS IS THE WILL OF THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLE! They want to prove that even on death’s door, they were willing to forgive – to make amends with those that have wronged them. Ak’abal and the Indigenous were not looking for something as petty or hateful as vengeance – they were the better men – men that were willing to forgive and to mend…
This is a really in depth depiction of Ak’abal’s poems in literary devices. I want to focus on your point of the rag being used as a patch, and the connection to Indigenous identity. I think it could be said that the connection between the Indigenous people and being a rag could be used to describe the ways in which colonizers used Indigenous people and their resources. The Indigenous people came to the status of battered and withered from the colonization, yet they still have purpose and they still have meaning, even if it is as a patch. I think that this further exemplifies the astounding act you claim to be represented here, of the Indigenous people being a more forgiving and more moral group.
Lovely reading with specific reference to particular verses and poetic devices, James!