The highlands of Chiapas are smoldering with death.In the winter of 1997, paramilitary agents ambushed and killed many Mayan villagers in Acteal, Chiapas. Gifted writer Juan Felipe Herrera has composed a stirring poem sequence -- published in a bilingual format -- written in response and homage to those who died, as well as to all those who call for peace and justice in the Mexican highlands and throughout the Americas.Thunderweavers is a story of violent displacements in the lives of the most impoverished residents of southern Mexico, the Tzotzil Tzeltal campesinos. It deals with the destruction of a people and all evidence of their lives: Why am I Tzotzil?Why was I born in this land of so many storms?<P" plant corn and yet I reap gunpowder
