Welcome to the multilingual, multicultural world of Guatemala

 Gaspar Pedro González, author of many books about the Q’anjob’al Maya, has recently recorded his readings of some of his poems, accompanied by traditional local music. This is a wonderful opportunity to hear the author himself read his poems, and to listen to the music played at celebrations in the Q’anjob’al region of Guatemala. 

This poem was first published in 1998 by Fundación Yax Te’ in the Q’anjob’al / Spanish collection Sq’anej Maya’ / Palabras Mayas (now out of print). It appears in the Q’anjob’al / English collection The Dry Season and the theme is developed further in the 2014 trilingual edition of his poems Xumakil / Botón en Flor / Budding(available on this website).

“Q’anej / La Palabra” is a lyrical poem addressed to “Mam Icham” (Old Grandfather) to honor the history, tradition and culture preserved by the ancestors through the Q’anjob’al language. Every word in the poem has linguistic, cultural and socio-political significance, emphasized by the beat of the drum which accompanies the speaker’s contemplation of the language from the margins of the world. 

This is the final poem in the trilingual collection Xumakil / Botón en Flor / Budding, published by Yax Te’ Books in 2014, and read here by the author, Gaspar Pedro González, in Q’anjob’al and Spanish. It evokes the Maya traditions of the Day of the Dead, cleaning the house and preparing an altar with flowers and candles, sharing local food and drinks, mourning the death and celebrating the memories of the writer’s father while dancing to traditional music.