I 'Ve Heard My Forefathers' Tongue In My Memory

The idea of identity a theme that has long been prevalent in literature. This concept is often characterized by an exploration of the way that one looks at themselves in relation with those around them and their pasts. Three influential Latin American poets that demonstrate this phenomenon include Pablo Neruda, Gioconda Belli, and Nicolás Guillén. Pablo Neruda, born in 1904 as Ricardo Eliecer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto, was an incredibly influential Chilean poet and Nobel Prize recipient. Along with writing poetry, he was also a highly active leftist figure and began working as a diplomat in Argentina and Spain in 1933, which had a profound effect on his writing. In 1943, Neruda was elected to the Senate and joined the Communist Party (https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/pablo-neruda).

Belli was Nicaraguan with strong Italian heritage, however, this poem illustrates the extent to which she identifies with Latin America. In her poem, she relates to ancient Latin Americans through the idea of language. She begins her poem, “I’ve heard my forefathers’ tongue in my dreams.” The “tongue” that Beli references is the language of Nahuatl, spoken by many ancient Latin American peoples. The fact that she refers to these people as her forefathers shows how strongly she relates to Latin America despite her Italian heritage. She further establishes her transnational using this sense of unity when she recounts the Spanish conquest, and uses inclusive pronouns such as “we,” and “us.” Like Neruda, Belli creates a sense of oneness and solidarity with ancient people from a land that she does not have a geographical or familial connection to. She also shows her sense of Latin American nationalism through metaphorical and self-constructed memories of the past that she does not actually have. In section six of this poem, Belli narrates Latin America post-conquest, saying that “Earth, blood, the color of fruits saved us; the wind sweeping through the gorges of Machu Picchu.” Here, she relates to the people of a newly conquered South America and recounts how they overcame this oppression in part through the power of nature. These

This idea of struggle is explored through the authors’ personal struggles and those that are faced by others, as well as through the comparison of struggle that they associate with the past and those that were prevalent in the time that these poems were written. In Neruda’s The Heights of Macchu Picchu, he hones in on many of these themes. In the chronicling of his journey to the ancient city, he reflects on how the lives of humans in modern society differ from the lives lived by the ancient people that lived in Macchu Picchu. In the third section of his poem, Neruda describes modern society as one where “not one death would come to each and every one, but many deaths: every day a little death. (4)” He describes these deaths as occurring due to the mundanities of everyday life, things such as “miserable events, from eight to four or nine to five (4).” He makes evident his personal disillusionment with these aspects of modern society, and expresses that he is in search of an escape, or a sort of resurrection, from these deaths the he faces in his modern life. He finds solace from this phenomenon in Macchu Picchu, and in his initial description of the city, this poem changes from a tone of disappointment and disillusionment and adopts one that is triumphant and peace This illustrates how transformational his escape from the struggles of daily life in the modern