John M Bennett

Las Cabezas Mayas Maya Heads John M Bennett

The faces, frames, words, and concepts in this book speak to and of the author's obsessions, history, and lunacy, but they have a resonance from a complex and rich cultural past that enriches them. These visual poems are not Mayan at all, yet they could not have come into being without an experience of Maya culture. Human cultures are never exclusive or "pure", but consist of dynamic mixings of many sources from many times and places. They are constantly in flux, and these pieces represent the incorporation of aspects of the ancient Maya world into the world we inhabit today. This is just one of the many ways in which the richness of the Maya universe is alive and well, and continuing to evolve. This is visual poetry with complex cultural and historical roots, and great contemporary resonance.