Point of View

The poems in the collection that have a speaker are all from the perspective of Natalie Diaz herself, or some imagined persona version of the poet herself. Diaz is a Mojave American woman who was raised in Needles, California on the Fort Mojave Indian reservation and currently lives in Arizona where she teaches at the Arizona State University creative writing graduate program. Many of the poems feature commentary about the poet's identity as a Mojave woman and the history and culture associated with that identity. In “The First Water Is the Body,” Diaz writes about the belief that the Colorado River runs within the bodies of the Mojave people, a belief that she uses to explore the oppression and erasure of Native people in America, past and present. She explains that “Aha Makav is the true name of our people, given to us by our...