Poetry and Violence: The Ballad Tradition of Mexico's Costa Chica

Folklore and Society

by John H. McDowell

John H. McDowell provides an in-depth look at the Mexican ballad form known as the corrido, a body of poetry that draws from violence for its subject matter. Through interviews with male and female corrido composers and performers, plus a generous sampling of ballad texts, McDowell reveals a living vernacular tradition that chronicles local and regional rivalries and spawned the narcocorrido, ballads set in the drug trade and particularly popular along the Rio Grande border. Detailed and rife with social and cultural implications, Poetry and Violence is a compelling commentary on violence as both human experience and communicative action.

264 pages, Hardcover

First published June 30, 2000

About the author

John Holmes McDowell (b. 1946)