Various authors, Jukub: Poems from Chiapas for the Reverse Conquest

Girasol Press, 2022

ISBN 978-1-9160786-4-2

Jukub: Poems from Chiapas for the Reverse Conquest contains poems by three poets from Chiapas, Edgar Darinel García, Miriam Esperanza Hernández Vázquez and Canario de la Cruz, first composed in Ch’ol and Tsotsil (two of the almost 70 languages spoken in Mexico), and translated into Spanish and English in an effort to navigate linguistic rebellion through poetry. Jukub, the Ch’ol word for canoe, alludes to the EZLN (Zapatista Army of National Liberation)’s maritime delegation, which this spring sailed to Europe to mark 500 years since the “conquest” of Mexico in 1521. Always attentive to the long histories of colonialism and resistance, the Zapatistas’ “voyage for life” is also a “reverse conquest,” which playfully re-inscribes and negates colonial history by renaming Europe Slumil K’ajxemk’op, or Rebel Land / Tierra Insumisa. Translated collectively by Juana Adcock, Leire Barrera-Medrano, Dan Eltringham, Rebecca Kosick and Annie McDermott.