Mayan Women Dreaming the Book
June 22, 2009

In Incantations, Mayan women dream and sing magical sacred female poems. Incantations—a powerful collection of poems, spells, and chants with stark, vivid illustrations—is a book rooted in the female soul of indigenous Mexico. The poets and the artists are the Tzotzil women of the Chiapas Highlands. Ambar Past, who collected the poems and drawings, has written a moving essay about their poetics, beliefs and history. The words, the images and the essay are an important addition to our understanding of the poetics and culture of the indigenous Americas.

Poet, ethnographer and anthologist JEROME ROTHENBERG, calling the book a major contribution to poetry in general and to ethnopoetics in particular, says of Incantations:

“There has to my mind never been a project quite like this: a collective body of poetry – and women’s poetry at that – coming directly out of an indigenous culture and gathered as a deliberate work of poetry and art by the women themselves. The poems…show how deeply rooted language traditions can transform into vehicles of personal as well as collective expression."