Tag Archives: poetry

09/26/21

Religious Critiques and Their Effects

I find his critique on Colonialism in the Paradise text to be very profound. I can see this becoming very controversial for the time. I am curious to hear other students’ perspectives on the matter. Do you think its parallels would have warranted a reaction similar to that of Paradise Lost (A text famous for its critique on the bible, God, and the fall of Lucifer) or other critiques of the religion? I think its main difference with Paradise lost is that it’s not directly critiquing the bible, rather the people who are colonizing their culture and changing their paradise for the worse in the name of God. It does a good job of pointing out the irony of holiness in this type of setting. I could see the lines where he refers to the colonizers as “serpents [who] spoke, forbade the fruit and decided paradise among themselves” could be a particularly divisive statement as a snake is considered to be a representation of the devil. It also indirectly brings to light the idea of religious freedom. As much as it is their right to practice Christianity it is also the right of the “Indio” to freely embrace their paradise in order to embrace their spirituality. Why should religious freedom be only applicable to Christians at the expense of Native Americans? I hope the effect of this poem did manage to provide a meaningful critique that hopefully some Christians at the time took to heart and convinced them to become supporters of indigenous beliefs, despite their differences. 

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.