How to Be a Good Savage and Other Poems

By Mikeas Sánchez and Wendy Call

• The book is part of the publisher’s Seedbank series, which has been praised by the New York Times, influential booksellers, and adopted into classrooms
• The author is the only woman to ever publish a book of poetry in Zoque (Indigenous language) and Spanish
• This book is the first English translation of the author’s Zoque poems
• The book’s engagement with language, Indigenous ways of living, gender, feminism, and environmental activism offer opportunities for wide coverage and reader engagement
• For readers of Joy Harjo and Natalie Diaz
• The book's introduction is authored by award-winning Indigenous poet Jake Skeets
• Trilingual text, with Zoque, Spanish and English
• Four-color interior, with the Zoque and Spanish poems set in color ink

• Language: English
• Publisher: Milkweed Editions
• Release date: Jan 9, 2024
• ISBN: 9781639550210

Mikeas Sánchez

Mikeas Sánchez is the author of How to Be a Good Savage and Other Poems. She is one of the most important poets of the Indigenous Americas, working in Zoque, a language spoken in southern Mexico. She is the only woman to have ever published a book of poetry in that language. Her six volumes of poetry—including Mokaya / Mojk'Jäyä and Mumure' tä' yäjktambä / Todos somos cimarrones—are all bilingual Spanish-Zoque. Sánchez’s work has been translated into Bangla, Catalan, English, German, Italian, Maya, Mixe, and Portuguese. In Chiapas, Mexico, she was awarded first place in the “Y el Bolóm dice . . .” Prize for Fiction as well as the Pat O’tan Prize for Indigenous Poetry. Sánchez is a radio producer, translator, community health promoter, and defender of Zoque lands. She lives in Ajway, Chiapas.

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