-
Donald Frischmann
- University of Texas Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Spirit-Matter-Word Contemporary Mexican Indigenous Poetry Donald Frischmann To the memory of George T. Hogan and Benjamín Urbina ‘‘The true poet is the chjinie, the ritual healer,’’ explains Mazatec author Juan Gregorio Regino.1 Víctor Terán, an Isthmus Zapotec poet, boasts: ‘‘In Juchitán, everyone is born a poet, until they prove otherwise.’’2 These two concepts on the nature of ‘‘poet’’ mark the self-referential boundaries that define today’s writing-in-verse by Mexican Indigenous-language authors. From ritual, transcendental chants of Mazatec healers to sensuous, earthy verses of Isthmus Zapotecs, thevitalityof the art and artistry illustrated herein is as diverse as the languages and cultures represented. One current works to access the supernatural world, to discern and remedy the underlying causes of earthly illness and misfortune; another tests the limits of sublime verbal expression with respect to love, the pleasures of the physical world, and its vicissitudes. Within these broad boundaries, Spirit-Matter-Word further embraces protective deities and the sacred mountains , waterholes, caves, plants, rocks, and animals that they watch over. Here also are revealed venerated elders, age-old healing practices, ethnic self-affirmation, local heroes, and popular history; women’s lives, struggles, and traditions; the challenges of modernity; and the denouncing of perennial social injustice. In a world where geographic distance is no longer an obstacle to accessing the richness of theworld’s literary traditions , a unique distillation of age-old cultural heritage and the postmodern world provides inspiration for these poets. In the face of present-day political and economic hegemonies which threaten to erase ethnicity, the voices of Spirit-Matter-Word continue to be guided first by their people’s oral and written literary traditions and by personal experience for the richness of their themes, imagery, and literary models.The ‘‘rule of thumb’’ forcontemporary Mexican Indigenous poets might read something like: ‘‘Be true to yourself, your people, and your ancestors, but open your senses and your spirit to the universe.’’ In the course of working on the second volume of this anthology, it has been a unique pleasure to renew friendships with many of the writers presented here and a distinct privilege to meet many others for the first time. The venues for our encounters have been as varied as the cultures , languages, professions, and homelands—both native and adoptive—that define the indisputable originality of these twelve poets who write in eight Mexican languages. The following discussion is based, to a great extent, on my encounters with the poets themselves, from Mexico City to the southernmost state of Chiapas. In the ensuing pages I prefer to give voice to the poets, though in this volume they of course are by no means voiceless. Their poetry invites contact with the art-consciousness of unique human communities, long ignored. The collectivity and the individual intertwine through religion-culture-wordkinship . As the human spirit defies borders, these poets reach readers within their cultural group and beyond. At times far beyond . . . Mexico South: Oaxaca The people known collectively in English as ‘‘Zapotecs’’ (and in Spanish as zapotecos) actually constitute a linguistic family, often subdivided between ‘‘Sierra Zapotecs’’ —those who inhabit the sierra surrounding Oaxaca city and the Central Valleys, the ancient Zapotec homeland; and ‘‘Isthmus Zapotecs’’—those residing in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, where the Zapotecs migrated, beginning in the fourteenth century AD.3 Víctor de la Cruz points out that the ‘‘Zapotec language’’ is not one language with numerous dialects, as is often believed; it is multiple languages , as different among themselves as are the Romance languages, particularly in the sierra; therefore, one might speak of Yalálag Zapotec, Ixtlán Zapotec, Villa Alta Zapotec , and Sierra Sur Zapotec, in addition to Valley Zapotec and Isthmus Zapotec, among others.4 Yalálag Zapotec poet Mario Molina Cruz (b. 1955) has 20 Tseng 2005.6.14 08:08 7273 Montemayor / WORDS OF THE TRUE PEOPLE V2 / sheet 38 of 295 Donald Frischmann 21 coordinated literary workshops in the District of Villa Alta for primary bilingual-school children. He also coordinates the Yalálag Workshop in Zapotec Language and Tradition. His method is based on traditional storytelling as a means to inspire creative writing in the maternal language. The poet explains his motivation to take up the pen at thirtyone years of age: I realized that in the classrooms there was Western literature , world literature, and Mexican literature, which, at best, exalted indigenist literature by non-Indigenous...