Incantation: Love Poems for Battle Sites is a Chicana's witness to the American ethos in a time marked by controversy, division, and transformation. Bermejo delves into the heart of the matter, contemplating the significance of US monuments as both symbols of history and battlegrounds for ideological strife, and imparts a compassionate ear to the marginalized, memorializing the lives of Black and brown individuals whose lives were cut short by state-sanctioned violence.

But Bermejo's poetry also brims with love, passion, and determination to resist the prevailing chaos. Amidst the chaos, she crafts love poems celebrating the bonds of family, the strength of friendships, and the allure of defiance. This collection dances like flames in rituals of resistance and resilience, illuminating paths toward a future unburdened by the shackles of misogyny and white supremacy.

The collection is inspired by writers like bell hooks, Audrey Lorde, and Adrienne Maree Brown. The influence of hooks' All About Love lends a profound sense of introspection to Bermejo's poetry as she examines the complex interplay of love within the context of societal upheaval. Lorde's exploration of the "Uses of the Erotic" adds layers of empowerment to the collection, breathing life into the transformative potential of embracing the self. And from Brown's Pleasure Activism, Bermejo draws that pleasure can be a vehicle for activism, a means of reshaping a world fractured by discord. She summons love, pleasure, and the human body to reimagine a collective vision of liberation from prejudice and discrimination. Bermejo crafts a literary sanctuary, a space where readers can confront the harsh realities of today's America while kindling the flames of hope.

Formato	Tapa suave
Número de Páginas	98
Lenguaje	Inglés
Editorial	Mouthfeel Press
Fecha de Publicación	2023-10-15
Dimensiones	9.19" x 7.0" x 0.27" pulgadas
Letra Grande	No
Con Ilustraciones	No

Bermejo, Xochitl

Julisa: - Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is the daughter of Mexican immigrants and author of Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge (Sundress Publications) and Incantation: Love Poems for Battle Sites (Mouthfeel Press). A former Steinbeck Fellow and Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange winner, she's received residencies from Hedgebrook, Ragdale, Yefe Nof, and the National Parks Arts Foundation in partnership with the Gettysburg National Military Park and Poetry Foundation. Her poem "Battlegrounds" was featured at Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day, On Being's Poetry Unbound, and the anthology, Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World (W.W. Norton). Her poetry can be found at Acentos Review, Huizache, Santa Fe Writers Project, and other journals. She teaches poetry and creative writing with Antioch University, MFA and UCLA Extension and is the director of Women Who Submit, a nonprofit organization empowering woman-identifying and nonbinary writers to submit work for literary publication. Inspired by her Chicana identity, she works to cultivate love and comfort in chaotic times.