If Today Were Tomorrow: Poems

by Humberto Ak'abal, Michael Bazzett (translator)

A masterful collection of poems rooted in K’iche’ Maya culture illustrating all the ways meaning manifests within our world, and how best to behold it.

“My language was born among trees, / it holds the taste of earth; / my ancestors’ tongue is my home.” So writes Humberto Ak’abal, a K’iche’ Maya poet born in Momostenango, in the western highlands of Guatemala. A legacy of land and language courses through the pages of this spirited collection, offering an expansive take on this internationally renowned poet’s work.

Written originally in the Indigenous K’iche’ language and translated from the Spanish by acclaimed poet Michael Bazzett, these poems blossom from the landscape that raised Ak’abal—mountains covered in cloud forest, deep ravines, terraced fields of maize. His unpretentious verse models a contraconquista—counter-conquest—perspective, one that resists the impulse to impose meaning on the world and encourages us to receive it instead. “In church,” he writes, “the only prayer you hear / comes from the trees / they turned into pews.” Every living thing has its song, these poems suggest. We need only listen for it.

Attuned, uncompromising, Ak’abal teaches readers to recognize grace in every earthly observation—in the wind, carrying a forgotten name. In the roots, whose floral messengers “tell us / what earth is like / on the inside.” Even in the birds, who “sing in mid-flight / and shit while flying.” At turns playful and pointed, this prescient entry in the Seedbank series is a transcendent celebration of both K’iche’ indigeneity and Ak’abal’s lifetime of work.

Genres: Poetry

301 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 25, 2024

About the author

Humberto Ak'ab'al (1952 - 2019) was a poet from Guatemala.

Reviews

[Burgi Zenhaeusern · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm very grateful to Michael Bazzett for having so beautifully translated Ak'abal's poems into English and compiled them with great perceptiveness into this comprehensive, bilingual collection. I might otherwise not have come across the stunningly clear-eyed simplicity and piercing directness of Ak'abal's poetry. In usually only a very few short lines, his poems range from profound sadness, love, caricature and social criticism to the genius of childlike wit; the latter a special feat for an adult to accomplish without seeming in the least contrived nor cutesy I think. A reader may find themselves chuckle over one poem and nearly cry over the next, a surprise is always in store in any case. Kudos to translators and their invaluable work!

[John Girardeau · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was immediately swept up by Michael Bazzett’s translation of these poems. They are sparse but so interesting I found it difficult to put the book down. Worth checking out.

[Maya Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

que balsamo en mi corazón cada día que me pusé a leer... un libro que realmente me acompañó de una forma o otra a lo largo de un año. sentía y me siento agradecide al gran autor señor humberto

[Cristina Perez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes you read a book that feels like an experience, and this book was that for me. I did read it on a vacation visiting friends in Ecuador, in an area where the population is approximately 40% indigenous (according to my friends)—and honestly, I think that’s the best way to read this. There’s just something about reading an indigenous Latin American’s poetry somewhere in Latin American with a significant indigenous population. Being on vacation doesn’t hurt either to make this a more memorable reading experience too.

However, even if you don’t travel to areas like that, or don’t read it when you’re there, you should definitely read this book if you love poetry, & reading from indigenous perspectives. It’s such a beautiful book that I will think of for awhile. I’m grateful this is the book I chose to read on my trip because 1) where I was really enhanced the poetry, 2) it inspired me write some poetry about my time in Ecuador, & 3) it’s just a great poetry book. Whenever a poetry book inspires me to write, it obviously gets elevated in my opinion.

I definitely want to keep reading more from Humberto Ak'abal because both of his books that I read so far I gave 5 stars to. But I did like this one more, even though a few of the poems here were also in the other collection I read, Here Was Paradise/Aquí era el paraíso.

I also love that this collection is in 3 languages: K'iche' Maya, Spanish, and English. Even though I mostly read it in English, because I’m not fluent in the other two, I appreciate collections like this. I may have lost the languages of my heritage, but it’s nice to see others who have kept theirs. I was able to read a few of the shorter poems in Spanish, and occasionally I preferred it because Spanish has a different flow than English. Poetry is such an interesting medium to translate.

Also, the translator’s note in the beginning was good too, and I don’t often enjoy forward’s/preface’s in books. You could tell that the translator, Michael Bazzett, loved Ak'abal’s work, and didn’t take from it, or infer too much of his own opinions beyond love and care before letting us read the poet’s own work.

(Yes, I think forwards & prefaces are often unnecessary, and don’t add much unless it’s a collection of multiple people’s writing, like an anthology. And even those can go on too long before letting the reader just read. I know I can skip them, but the completist in me/fear of missing something important, doesn’t like to skip it, but I should start. However, I liked this one.)

This was the first new book I read in 2026, and it immediately became a new favorite—what a great start to my reading year.

[Benjamin Niespodziany · Rating 5 out of 5]

300 pages of poems by the late Humberto Ak'abal as translated by Michael Bazzett (a poet in his own right and one who received acclaim for his translation of The Popol Vuh). Most of these poems are only a few lines long. Short and sweet, meditative and reflective. Insightful and sharp, teetering on haiku levels of brevity. Aphorisms inspired by daily life. Like "Poets are born old: // as the years pass / we make ourselves into children." Or "Monday // yawns wide / as the week opens its mouth." Or "The moon / finds holes / in adobe houses / then slips in / to sit on the floor."

[John West · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spare and plainspoken, but also beautiful—especially the descriptions of the natural world, the perfect way for me to focus my attention on the deepening autumn, the green leaves coloring red, falling yellow and brown.

[Charle Tarane · Rating 5 out of 5]

“This bilingual collection by the late Guatemalan K’iche’ Maya poet is a rapturous, often witty ode to nature in all of its infinite variety. Ak’abal’s writing is sometimes as sparse as haiku, yet every word is rooted deep into the earth. From the mighty power of trees and rivers all the way down to the most delicate birdsong, his observations show a poet with an acute attention to detail. Bazzett’s translation has an elegant economy, allowing Ak’abal’s fresh, rain-washed words to glow.”
–Grace Harper