Paper short abstract:

This proposal addresses poetic language as a narrative form in the public letters of the Zapatistas and their forms of resistance. The research focuses on reflecting on world views which have, in poetry, a way to transcend the need for definition and achieve unlimited signs.

Paper long abstract:

The present proposal was extracted from a research on Zapatista letters, written and made public between the years 1994 and 2005. Initially characterized as an armed insurgency by Mayan Indians, this movement owes a part of its visibility to the writings publicized through the internet globally. The Zapatista discourse highlighted its capacity to transpose spatial frontiers and mobilize people, regarding its demands, accusations and political articulations. However, its uniqueness remains also in its various narrative forms, aggregated to the purpose of claiming rights. Among these forms, poetic language is one of the most effective tools of resistance. This language goes beyond political manifesto, as it exceeds the need to always outline and define things. Clearly, the communiqués are aiming to state and explain demands articulated in indigenous ways of being in the world. However, what I see in the Zapatista poetics is that there are things that are said to be understood, and others to be felt. In order to analyze the forms of resistance from the Zapatista poetic language, I propose to reflect worldviews that rearrange themselves in ways to articulate claims. These worldviews are intertwined with pieces of reality which are intercepted by poetry, creating an arrangement between what is said / explained and what is unlimited / indefinite.