Adela Sagastume de Acuña (18XX-1926)

Poem and translation: Los siglos.

Adela Sagastume grew up in rural Guatemala. She was married and had eight children. One of her daughters, Angelina Acuña, became a poet.
Adela was a dressmaker and helped to run her husband’s coffee plantation. She left numerous journals filled with poetry, but only one was published in her lifetime, Sensitiva, in 1920 (Figueroa Marroquín 21).

While the form of “Los siglos” (1924) would be considered old-fashioned by many metropolitan poets of the 1920s, it ambitiously addresses philosophy, history, and politics. In fact, it may be read as Sagastume de Acuña’s oblique criticism on local political upheavals, expressing disrespect for those who jockey for power.

0 thoughts on “Adela Sagastume de Acuña (18XX-1926)

  1. By any chance, do you have an English translation of Angelina Acuña’s poem …quien dijo maestra, dijo sembradora…? Thank you and regards.

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