[Aztlan] Aztec poetry

[Patrick Johnson]

I don't know anything about, for example, modern Maya or Nahua poets, but
several modern authors such as Octavio Paz (who your son might be reading
already) emphasize culture and history in their poetry. Otherwise, I've
found a few internet resources:

http://www.indigenouspeople.net/poetry1.htm seems to be a good general
resource, linking to a few poems translated from Quecha, Mayan, Nahua,
including from red-coral.net, where John Curl offers selections from his
Ancient American Poets, including translations of the common and popular
Nezahualcoyotl and the lyric poetry of Mayan Dzitbalché.

Daniel Brinton's Ancient Nahuatl Poetry, Containing the Nahuatl Text of
XXVII Ancient Mexican Poems, offers more of the scholarly approach, and is
available in full at http://www.fullbooks.com/Ancient-Nahuatl-Poetry1.html

I hope these are of some use and that others offer different resources.

--Patrick Johnson


On Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 9:56 AM, Wendy Bacon <
Wendy.J.Bacon.C78 at alumni.upenn.edu> wrote:

> My teenaged son is studying Latin America, and his teacher is
> starting with poetry by Latin American authors.  I thought it might
> be interesting to throw in a little poetry by indigenous Latin
> Americans.  I do have a few references in books to Yukatek and Nauatl
> poetry, but this is the on-line generation.  I've found an indigenous
> poetry website, but wasn't impressed.  Does anybody happen to know of
> some internet resources for native Latin American poetry with good
> scholarly underpinnings?
>
> Wendy
>
>
> Wendy J. Bacon, PhD
> Department of Anthropology
> University of Pennsylvania
>