No + Wingka Word: Sounds of Mapuche Resurgence in the Poetry of Leonel Lienlaf

This article analyzes the poetry of Mapuche author Leonel Lienlaf as a form of resistance and agency from the graphic and sonic as well as the linguistic and literary reterritorialization of Mapudungun, the Mapuche language. The article focuses on poems from Lienlaf's first two books, both published in Chile: Se ha despertado el ave de mi corazón (The Bird of My Heart Has Awakened; 1989) and Pewma dungu / Palabras soñadas (Dreamed Words; 2003). As the article demonstrates, Lienlaf's poetry stages a ritualization of voices, sounds, and images that embody a Mapuche sense of language and territory. Moreover, it highlights the way Lienlaf's poems are records of auditory and sonic experiences that resist the “acoustic colonialism” imposed by the dominant state, corporate, and media actors in neoliberal, contemporary Chile.