“what didn’t you do to bury me / but you forgot that I was a seed”

June 9, 2020 10:42 AM

"Quisieron enterrarnos, pero se les olvido que somos semillas."
The history of ‘They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds.’

I first encountered this Mexican dicho in the mid-90’s reading poems and graffiti from Zapatistas. Then, when we lost the Ayotzinapa 43, the refrain came back as if a whole crop of teachers were about to burst from the earth in Iguala.

On the Origins of “They Tried to Bury Us, They Didn’t Know We Were Seeds”

The curious history of this phrase dates back even further and farther. I sat down with Greek media scholar Alexandra Boutopoulou, who is a doctoral researcher of visual social media and digital culture at the University of Sheffield. While not a professional poetry critic, the combination of her BA in Literature with her social media expertise helped shed more light on the phrase’s origins.

* * *

An Xiao Mina: It seems that this phrase originates with the Greek poet Dinos Christianopoulos. Can you tell me more about the original poem?

Alexandra Boutopoulou: In 1978, Christianopoulos wrote a small couplet, which was included in the collection The Body and the Wormwood (1960–1993), translated into English by Prof. Nicholas Kostis (1995). The couplet reads:

what didn’t you do to bury me

but you forgot that I was a seed

Allegedly, these lines were addressed to the Greek literary community that had strongly criticized Christianopoulos’s poetry at the time. Be that as it may, the power of the couplet lies in its very capacity to put down roots and then to bloom worldwide, especially since its creator had barely ever left the Greek borders.

Dinos Christianopoulos

The sheep have gone on strike /
they are demanding better slaughtering conditions.

The Poetry of Dinos Christianopoulos, the aphorisms. 5 things you need to know about the "heretical" poet (in Greek), more poems(in Greek)

posted by the man of twists and turns (5 comments total)

How cool to learn this.

As a newly minted fan of A. E. Stallings, I'm intrigued by the strands of modern Greek culture in current poetry.

Also, I majored in Spanish but somehow never managed to learn about dichos.

Thank you for all of this, the man of twists and turns!
posted by kristi at 11:14 AM on June 9, 2020

FLT: the links that lead to the doings in Chiapas are great. Thanks
posted by mule98J at 11:40 AM on June 9, 2020

I love aphorisms, though I have never encountered this one, or this poet previously. Was eager to look up more from Christianopoulos -- but that "aphorism" link is all Greek to me. (yes, I did...)

And I also love the link to Mexican dichos. When I lived in Mexico, I was quickly introduced to the art of dichos. For the longest time, I always felt a step behind in conversation when a dicho was thrown in: not just the figurative language, but the historical/cultural context around the words, too.

I got better at it, though, specifically with the help of a random book I grabbed one day while waiting at a bus station. (You could say it was the moment "me cayó la moneda") It had pages of dichos, and I enjoyed thumbing through them, learning them, asking my friends questions about them before one showed up in conversation.

The little book contained my favorite example of the genre:

Como Apóstol trece, come y desaparece

"Like the 13th Disciple, he eats and leaves."

Beyond a colorful way to describe any grab and go behavior, in Catholic Mexico, where the semana santa Holy Week before Easter is widely celebrated, no one needs to think twice on the Last Supper connotations. And, it just lilts and rhymes so nicely when you roll it out in conversation!
posted by Theophrastus Johnson at 12:58 PM on June 9, 2020 [4 favorites]

I love dichos. I first really encountered them in depth when I did a unit on translation as part of my Spanish major- in that you can't translate word-for-word, especially with expressions.

The one that I remember is 'between a rock and a hard place', entre la espada y la pared, word for word 'between the sword and the wall'.
posted by freethefeet at 6:49 PM on June 9, 2020

Because the automatic linking didn’t pick it up: landays, previously
posted by clew at 12:41 PM on June 11, 2020