The Mayan Books


"The Mayan Books" is a poem by Australian poet A. D. Hope. It was first published in the poet's collection Orpheus in 1991, and later in other Australian poetry anthologies.

Outline

The poem recounts the sin of Archbishop Diego de Landa of Yucatán who gathered together a large pile of Mayan books and burned the lot. In heaven he looks toward God but God never looks at him.

Analysis

In his commentary on the poem in 60 Classic Australian Poems Geoff Page noted that poems like this "have a way of floating into and out of focus, according to how much we seem to need them.".

Further publications

Selected Poems by A. D. Hope, edited by David Brooks, Angus and Robertson, 1992The Oxford Book of Modern Australian Verse edited by Peter Porter, Oxford University Press, 1996Australian Verse : An Oxford Anthology edited by John Leonard, Oxford University Press, 199860 Classic Australian Poems edited by Geoff Page, University of NSW Press, 2009Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature edited by Nicholas Jose, Kerryn Goldsworthy, Anita Heiss, David McCooey, Peter Minter, Nicole Moore, and Elizabeth Webby, Allen and Unwin, 2009The Puncher & Wattmann Anthology of Australian Poetry edited by John Leonard, Puncher & Wattmann, 2009Australian Poetry Since 1788 edited by Geoffrey Lehmann and Robert Gray, University of NSW Press, 2011

Note

  • Geoff Page, in 60 Classic Australian Poems, indicates that the poem was originally written some time in the 1970s.