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B’ich q’eqchi’ - INDIGENOUS POETRY FROM ABIAYA Collection, 1
(Aj Xol Héctor Rolando)
978-1-951370-28-2
Whereas Indigenous communities throughout the Americas have been historically defined by place, Q’eqchi’ speakers “have the largest geographical extension of all Maya groups” (Kahn). As such, Q’eqchi’ authors like Aj Xol have a unique perspective on what it means to be rooted to a place, to migrate, and to live in community. His poems deal with the natural world, food and human relationships, but also with universal emotions such as death and loss, love and eroticism. All of them are meant to be read aloud, participate in the tradition of Indigenous poetics that K’iche’ scholar Emil Keme’ celebrates as the hallmark of Maya literature: something that “allows us the possibility not only of ‘imagining’ a new world but also materializing it.”
Allison Bigelow, Mason Courter y Candies Taramona
Author Aj Xol Héctor Rolando
ISBN 978-1-951370-28-2
Pages 216
Format Paperback
CALL THE SPIRIT
Words of my father, song of my mother.
Come father, come son!
Where did you stay, where did you lose yourself?
Perhaps they scared you on the path,
at the crossroads my father my son.
Perhaps you got scared in the river, at the mouth of the river.
Come father, come son!
Here are your candles, here is your copal,
Here is your herb that frightens,
Spread its scent in the house, in our home.