The Popol Vuh

Poetry

The Popol Vuh

Seedbank Series
A NEW YORK TIMES BEST POETRY BOOK OF 2018

"Mr. Bazzett writes that his intent was to create a more accessible source for students, ‘a version of the myth they could disappear into, a verse version that truly sang.’ He has succeeded.” —WALL STREET JOURNAL
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NEW YORK TIMES BEST POETRY BOOK OF 2018
WORLD LITERATURE TODAY NOTABLE TRANSLATION

In the beginning, the world is spoken into existence with one word: “Earth.” There are no inhabitants, and no sun—only the broad sky, silent sea, and sovereign Framer and Shaper. Then come the twin heroes Hunahpu and Xbalanque. Wielding blowguns, they begin a journey to hell and back, ready to confront the folly of false deities as well as death itself, in service to the world and to humanity.

This is the story of the Mayan Popol Vuh, “the book of the woven mat,” one of the only epics indigenous to the Americas. Originally sung and chanted, before being translated into prose—and now, for the first time, translated back into verse by Michael Bazzett—this is a story of the generative power of language. A story that asks not only Where did you come from? but How might you live again? A story that, for the first time in English, lives fully as “the phonetic rendering of a living pulse.”

By turns poetic and lucid, sinuous and accessible, this striking new translation of The Popol Vuh—the first in the Seedbank series of world literaturebreathes new life into an essential tale.

ISBN:
9781571314680
Publish Date: 
10/09/2018
Pages: 
312
Size: 
5.5 × 8.5 × 1 in
Weight: 
13.3 oz
Author

Michael Bazzett is the author of You Must Remember This, which received the 2014 Lindquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry, The Interrogation, and most recently The Echo Chamber. He is also the translator of The Popol Vuh, the first English verse translation of the Mayan creation epic, which was named one a New York Times Best Book of 2018. His poems have appeared in numerous publications, including PloughsharesThe Sun, and Best New Poets. He is a 2017 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow and lives in Minneapolis.

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