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First Rain

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Written originally in Me'phaa, First Rain is a selection of poems that emerged from the poet responding to the death of his grandmother who declared to him in 2005: I will die in the days when the first rains come. The work mourns both the loss of a grandmother, and the fading away (like her sight in later life) of a culture and language that hold so much history and pride. In this way, they address social, racial and gender inequalities, environmental abuses and injustices faced by native peoples in Latin America - issues that have resonance globally. As the poet recounts: In the face of the wind, grab the stones that are falling upon us, one of his grandmother's phrases, refers to people standing up to injustice. This collection, Hubert Matiuwaa's first ever in English, is a gathering of stones.
Hubert Matiuwaa is a leading indigenous Mexican poet writing in the Me'phaa language. Winner of several national awards, he also won the 2017 "V Premio de Literaturas Indigenas de America (PLIA)" and received scholarships from the National Fund for Culture and the Arts (FONCA) in 2017 and 2019. Hubert holds degrees in Philosophy and Literature (UAGro), Creative Writing (UACM) and a Master's in Latin American Studies (UNAM). His poetry collections include Xtambaa/Piel de Tierra (2016), Manuwiin/Cordel Torcido (2018), and Mbo Xta rida/ Gente piel (2020). In 2020, he also published Ada Bego tsi nanda' a ru'wa/Poeta Rayo, his first children's book. First Rain is his first pamphlet in the English language. Juana Adcock is a Mexican-British poet and translator whose work has been publsihed in magazines such as Magma, Kenyon Review, Modern Poetry in Translation, and several anthologies in the UK, Mexico, and further afield. Her English-language debut poetry collection, Split (2019), was a Poetry Book Society Choice, and was included in the Guardian's Best Poetry of 2019.
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