Ruperta Bautista Vázquez: 6 poems from Telar Luminario/Weaving Light (2013)

Ruperta Bautista Vázquez is a community educator, writer, anthropologist, translator, and Tsotsil Maya actress, from San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, México. She holds degrees in Creative Writing from the Sociedad General de Escritores de México (SOGEM), Indigenous Rights and Cultures from CIESAS-Sureste, Anthropology from Universidad Autónoma de Chiapas, and a Masters Degree in Education and Cultural Diversity. To date she has published Xojobal Jalob te’ (Telar Luminario) Pluralia Ediciones y CONACULTA, México D.F, 2013; Xchamel Ch’ul Balamil (Eclipse en la madre tierra) 2008, Primera edición. 2014, 2da edición; Ch’iel k’opojelal (Vivencias) 2003; and had her work anthologized in Palabra conjurada, cinco Voces cinco Cantos (Coautora) 1999. Her work has been translated into English, French, Italian, Catalán, and Portuguese.

Poems from Telar Luminario/Weaving Light (2013)

This brief selection of poems comes from the latest published work of the Tsotil Maya poet Ruperta Bautista Vázquez, Xojobal Jalob Te’/Telar luminario (2013), ‘Weaving Light.’ It should be noted that it continues the trajectory established in her previous works, in which humanity must struggle day-in and day-out to survive in a world slowly succumbing to violence and despair. Situated within the context of Maya prophetic texts, Xojobal Jalob Te’ intervenes within both the world of her world and our own. As suggested its name, the book is meant to be a “seeing instrument” in much the same way as the K’iche’ Maya Popol wuj. This particular series of six poems, “Lightning,” “Sustenance,” “Ellipsis,” “Sowing Hope,” “Heirs to the Rain,” and “Ancient Offering,” emphasizes the relationships that people, and above all Maya communities, have with nature. In particular, they seek to revitalize traditional practices that have historically sustained human communities, and that remind us that our relationship with nature is reciprocal, that what we give eventually returns to us in some way. We hope that you enjoy these poems, and that shine a light in the contemporary world (Paul Worley).

PDF: 6 poems from Telar Luminario/Weaving Light

More about the poet:

  • Four Poems in Latin American Literature Today. Translated by Paul M. Worley
  • Five Poems in the Latin American Literary Review.
    Translated by Paul M. Worley

About the translator

Paul M. Worley is Associate Professor of Global Literature at Western Carolina University. He is the author of Telling and Being Told: Storytelling and Cultural Control in Contemporary Yucatec Maya Literatures (2013; oral performances recorded as part of this book project are available at tsikbalichmaya.org), and with Rita M Palacios is co-author of the forthcoming Unwriting Maya Literature: Ts’íib as Recorded Knowledge (2019). He is a Fulbright Scholar, and 2018 winner of the Sturgis Leavitt Award from the Southeastern Council on Latin American Studies. In addition to his academic work, he has translated selected works by Indigenous authors such as Hubert Malina, Adriana López, and Ruperta Bautista, serves as editor-at-large for México for the journal of world literature in English translation, Asymptote, and as poetry editor for the North Dakota Quarterly.

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