Earthbound Poetry Series: Cecilia Vicuña (Vol. 3, No. 10)

Published 31 October 2022

Text: Quipu de Luz ; they / performed… ; Poetry (trans. Rosa Alcalá) [three poems]

Cover: Quipu Menstrual (The Blood of the Glaciers), by Cecilia Vicuña. Wool, Dye, and Bamboo (2006-2022) [photograph by the artist]

Quipu Menstrual (The Blood of the Glaciers) was first created at the foot of El Plomo Glacier above Santiago de Chile, in January 2006. I placed it in the mountain as my ‘vote’ in the Presidential election, to ask our first woman President Michelle Bachelet to remember the union of water and blood and defend the glaciers against mining.

Quipu (knot) in Quechua, is a “writing system” with colored knotted cords, created 5,000 years ago in the Andes, capable of encoding complex information. European colonization banned it, but the system survived underground.

For me, the quipu is a poem in space, a form of poetic resistance against the ongoing colonization of our minds, spirits, and lands. —C.V.

Printed in Aqua, Red, Yellow, and Black riso inks, on Munken Pure 170gsm acid free paper. 8pp. Edition of fifty-two numbered copies. Second printing.