How to Be a Good Savage and Other Poems
Since 2018, I have collaborated with Mexican-Zoque poet Mikeas Sánchez to bring her poetry into English. In January 2024, Milkweed Editions published How to Be a Good Savage and Other Poems, in a trilingual edition, as part of their wonderful Seedbank series. I co-translated this book with Shook, who translated and published many of Mikeas’s early poems.
The book is available at Milkweed, Bookshop, and many wonderful independent bookstores.
In January 2024, Mikeas and I completed a six-state book tour in Mexico, as well as several events online, hosted by Latin American Literature Today and Princeton University.
“A groundbreaking and deeply passionate poetry collection that celebrates language and feminine power. Not to be missed.”
Read an excellent review of the book and profile of Mikeas Sánchez at the New York Times Book Review, as well as a feature about her at HipLatina.
The Academy of American Poets interviewed Shook and I about “The Power of Titles, Decolonization, and Translating Poems in Iterations.”
You can read other reviews of the book (and/or the audio book) at Asymptote, Library Journal, Raven Chronicles, Tupelo Quarterly, and World Literature Today.
And excerpt from How to Be a Good Savage and Other Poems appears at Latin American Literature Today and the title poem is at Orion.
“...a significant work in more ways than one.”
You can read my translations of poems from this collection in these literary journals:
“My Father Gave Me a Gift,” poem by Mikeas Sánchez, and a Translator’s Note, “Translation in the 21st Century” Folio, Poetry, 2022
Two poems by Mikeas Sánchez, Pleiades: Literature in Context, Vol 40, No 1, University of Central Missouri, Winter 2020
“What Is It Worth?” by Mikeas Sánchez, Modern Poetry in Translation: The Best of World Poetry, London, Fall 2019
“We Are Millions” by Mikeas Sánchez, World Literature Today, Vol 93, No 4, University of Oklahoma, Autumn 2019
“This trilingual poetry collection is truly a remarkable landmark. Rich in visceral and natural imagery, with allusions to Zoque, Mexican, and Western myths and literary traditions, Sanchez’ poems are transfixing and invigorating.”