The Linnet's Wings Spring 2015 | Page 32

Spring 2015 SPANISH NEW WORLD POETRY by Stephen Zelnick P The Landing of Colombus by John Vanderlyn oetry is a powerful force in Latin America. There is not much positive about the Spanish Conquest of the New World, but it did establish a Latin America formed by the Spanish language. Most of South America (except Brazil and a few other nations and locales), all of Central America, and the most prominent islands of the Caribbean speak Spanish and share one another’s art and culture. They share, too, a pre-Columbian history of indigenous peoples – Mayan and Incan, Carib and Taino -- whose heritage persists. They also share the brutal conquests that enslaved and wiped out so many cultures, the establishment of an alien Christianity, a century or more of liberation struggles, and the re-colonization (or its modern equivalent) by the United States. Neruda’s “Educación del Cacique” (Education of the Chieftain), for example, may have been written with Chilean tribal people in mind, but it’s meaning is clear a thousand miles north in Puerto Rico. The Linnet's Wings