Discarded Pages
Araceli Cab Cumí, Maya Poet and Politician
Publication Year: 2007
Published by: University of New Mexico Press
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
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pp. ix-
Original Writings of Araceli Cab Cum�
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pp. x-xii
Acknowledgments
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pp. xiii-xvi
To Oth�n Ba�os Ram�rez, Beatriz Castilla Ramos and Beatriz Torres G�ngora, and Juan Castillo Cocom of the Universidad Aut�noma de Yucat�n; Kathleen Rock Mart�n of Florida International University; Allan Burns of the University of Florida; and Sharon M�jica of the University of North Carolina, who, motivated by the search for anthropological knowledge and investigation, looked ...
Introduction: A Maya Poet and Politician, Araceli Cab Cum�
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pp. 1-18
Leaning against the wall of her grandparents’ abandoned home, Araceli gazes past me, and my camera, perhaps to a middle distance of memory. Fleetingly a quieter Araceli replaces the talkative, outgoing politician. As she looks beyond me, I wonder why she has such a thoughtful, somber expression? The moment passes and I never know. Yet at seventy-five Araceli ...
1: Writing the Contours of a Life
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pp. 19-62
In the opening poem of this chapter Araceli Cab Cum� expresses her desire for recognition rooted in intellectual achievement. As someone who is keenly intelligent but with limited formal schooling, as someone who writes as a fundamental form of self-expression yet files her work away, much of it unread by anyone but herself, Araceli desires recognition as a writer and ...
2: The Poetry of Place and Community
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pp. 63-104
In the opening poem to this chapter Araceli exalts her home, street, and barrio then circles outward to include the countryside around Maxcan� in her homage to her birth land. Araceli writes identifying herself as a Maya woman firmly rooted within her home community of Maxcan�. Maxcan� is largely a Maya town with a population of about fifteen thousand. To visitors it appears less populated and more rural than it actually is ...
3: On Behalf of Women
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pp. 105-148
Araceli opens this chapter with two interconnected poems that she wrote to honor women on March 8, the International Day of Women. Her commemorative poems center upon a universal expression of women’s aspirations and hopes. While not universally acknowledged, the International Day of Women is honored in Mexico and Araceli always celebrates the day. ...
4: An Agenda for the Maya
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pp. 149-196
Araceli composed the preceding poem especially to open this chapter about her political work with and on behalf of her fellow Yucatec Maya. In it she links her identity as a Maya to the natural world, particularly to the basic foodstuff crops, corn and beans, of the Maya campesinos for many millennia. Corn is especially important since its cycle of clearing fields, planting, caretaking of the growing crop, and ultimately ...
5: Poetry: "Because I Have a Heart”
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pp. 197-226
Beginning in May 1976 and continuing off and on until June 1999, Araceli wrote a series of thirteen love poems interconnected by themes of intimacy, longing, and solitude. As she explains in the opening poem, which she composed especially for this chapter, she wrote these poems “because I have a heart” (porque tengo un corazón). The opening and closing poems of this twenty-three-year series have ...
6: Endings?
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pp. 227-252
At seventy-five Araceli may appear to have closed down her political career and be settling into retirement. In June 2002 Araceli’s husband, Pablo, died after a long, debilitating illness that, although undiagnosed, resembled the slow fading of the mind characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease. For the two years preceding his death Pablo was too ill to continue to farm his milpa. His dry goods stall in the Maxcanú market had closed ...
Conclusions
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pp. 253-261
Araceli’s poem, “I Begin These Essays Today,” opens this book with its telling question, “Could we consider ourselves as important participants in such a world, born as we were poor in Maxcanú?” Her life, lived as triumph, has given the answer to this question. Her intellect, resilient spirit, and stalwart personality were her pathways out of poverty and despair into a ...
Appendix: Methodology
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pp. 263-269
Notes
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pp. 270-296
Works Cited
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pp. 297-305
Index
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pp. 307-312
Back Cover
E-ISBN-13: 9780826340689
E-ISBN-10: 0826340687
Print-ISBN-13: 9780826340665
Print-ISBN-10: 0826340660
Page Count: 332
Illustrations: 27 halftones
Publication Year: 2007
