Flower and Song: Poems of the Aztec Peoples

Poetica 4 ‘Flower and song’ was the ancient Mexican Aztecs’ metaphor for poetry. Their brilliant poetic tradition has remained relatively unknown, despite the pioneering work of recent scholars. Edward Kissam and Michael Schmidt are fine poets who have both lived in Mexico; their versions recreate the many facets of that extraordinary society before the Spanish Conquest. They give us powerful echoes of the lyrical and philosophical songs, the songs of rejoicing, sorrow, ritual and war, and the epics of myth and legend. The authors trace the background to this material in their introduction, and the book also contains an appendix of poems from contemporary oral tradition.