Tag Archives: 500 Years

09/23/21

A Hopeful Ending

In Ak’abal’s collection of poems, the section entitled “500 años” or “500 years” offers readers a complete storyline through a number of poems. Ak’abal introduces us to this story with the poem titled the same as the section, “500 years”. This poem gives us a context for the section, one critical of the treatment and status of Indigenous peoples. “500 years”, “pain”, and “holes” work together to paint a picture of the injustice (p 155, line 5), misery (p 157, line 1), and poverty (p 162, line 4) experienced by Indigenous people, and by Ak’abal. The poem titled “paradise” enlightens us to the cause of this mistreatment of Indigenous people, colonization. This particular poem begins with a description of a world of paradise, without sin, but soon transitions to a world of violence where the powerful enforce their will on others (page 159).

These poems give us the beginning and the middle of a story of colonization and oppression. However, the final poem of the section “the lamb” leaves me thinking there is hope for this story. This final poem speaks of a lamb and a shepherdess, as the shepherdess licks the lambs wound (page 163). As Ak’abal ended this section with this poem, I am left thinking that the lamb represents the oppressed Indigenous people, and the shepherdess represents a more abstract idea of hope, or freedom, or justice. His choice of finishing this section that is filled with a depiction of the creation and perpetuation of the minority status of Indigenous people with a poem of healing and comfort reveals an intent to rewrite the end of a story of oppression and change it into one of hope.

09/23/21
"Old Feedsack Rag Balls" by 'Playingwithbrushes' is licensed under CC BY 2.0

The Will of Rags

"Old Feedsack Rag Balls" by 'Playingwithbrushes' is licensed under CC BY 2.0

“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…