Word Choice

I chose the title PurpleBalloons because it is completely random. I like balloons.

When reading "Sculpted Stones (Piedras Labradas)" by Victor Montejo the word choice caught my attention more than anything.  Yes, the poem communicates the results of colonization on indigenous peoples and their struggles for preservation, but more importantly it succeeds in strong characterization in only a few lines. Montejo characterizes the Maya as strong and western culture as weak. In the first stanza we see "...several millennia/ of history,/ and forgotten by men/ shinning millenia/ of victory." Millenia is a strong word choice (in contrast to alternatives like 'many years') and it, along with the adjective shinning, it reinforces the depth and strength associated with having a history, like the Maya do. Victory is another obvious designation of the Mayan strength. The only characterization of Western culture in this stanza is forgotten. To forget something critical is a trait of the weak, not the strong.

In the second stanza Montejo tells us that the Maya culture "stand[s] as one" and "bares its teeth" at the "easy going...tourist...[and] onlookers." Standing as one and baring teeth indisputably create an image of strength and easy going tourist makes us of think of a naive traveler: either unaware of the greatness he is witnessing or too self absorbed to respect it. 

Finally, the Maya are characterized in the last stanza as vigilant, another positive trait. The whole of western culture is labeled a traveler. Traveler may or may not denote being unwelcome but it definitely means non native and maybe even out of place. Montejo succeeds in establishing an "Us vs Them" dynamic in this poem. We, the Maya, have millenia of history, are victorious, stand as one while baring teeth and are vigilant. They - the western civilization - are forgetful, easy going, tourists, onlookers and travelers floating through the cobwebs that have developed following the destruction of a glorious, indigenous empire.