Conversaciones con los difuntos / Conversations with the Dead is a gothic and spiritual poetry collection delving into other dimensions, diving in, head first into the spirit world, swimming among all that is dead, long gone – or so we think.

This is my first poetry collection that is completely bilingual – meaning every poem that I wrote in English has its version in Spanish and every poem I wrote in Spanish has its version in English, with the exception of the last two poems of the book. Why? It is done so by design. You’ll just have to read it to find out why.

This is also my first collection published in Mexico with Desierto Mayor Editores under the care of maestro Manuel Cuen from San Luis Río Colorado, handcrafted by artisanal printers in Mexicali, and includes masterful graphics by maestro Adan Romero Valencia, who in the process of printing this book, crossed over – may he rest in peace. This book is dedicated to him.

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Advanced Praise

Diosa Xochiquetzalcóatl’s Conversaciones con los difuntos/Conversations with the Dead rattles with the heebie-jeebies of dark midnights and the echoes of forgotten voices. Each poem is cast in both Spanish and English, allowing the reader to delight in cross-lingual play that haunts our days and nights. This playful collection dances with skeletons and invites us to discover what lingers in the recesses of shadow and hurt.

-Adela Najarro, author of Variations in Blue

All poets are mortal and we want our verses to be immortal. And how do we achieve that? In Conversaciones con los difuntos/Conversations with the Dead, Diosa conjures up with her brush with mortality, her life within the contradictions of Mexican traditions and writes the story of what happens when the living mortals connect and converse with the dead immortals. Through poems that are spells, incantations and near-death experiences, Diosa gives readers a slice of the fears and contradictions facing all mortal beings. How do we stop death? How do we protect our loved ones from that mortal crevice into which everyone will eventually fall? Who protects the protector of life from death? Everyone will die. And how we live and how we die are intimately connected by how we treat and how we communicate with our dearly departed ancestors. You cannot converse with the dead if you did not converse with them when they were alive. And how do you converse with the ancestors? Diosa Xochiquetzalcóatl writes: “I pray my seven generations/will summon me long after I die” Diosa summons the past seven generations, remembers them, caresses them, listens and walks with them. Each one of us has this power of relationship, the seven generations, that traverses our lives and invites us to make life livable so that in seven generations life is livable. Diosa’s work shows that in order to have these conversations you have to be connected in deeper and committed ways. Mexicans celebrate the dead not as death but as renewal, reconnection, as harvest and gratitude for those who came before us and made the soil and the human culture fertile for us to dream and to live more freely. Diosa’s poems uplifts this relationship: Death is not final because life is open ended, infinite. We carry within our bodies all the elements, including our dearly departed and our ancestors. They live through us as we live through them where we are born, live, walk, plant seeds, struggle and resist for life and dream our seven generations of interrelationships. Conversaciones con los difuntos/ Conversations with the Dead is an invitation to engage in conversations with your own duality, your mortality and immortality. And how will you be remembered seven generations from now?

—arnoldo colibrí

Un poemario bilingüe que rinde tributo a la muerte como una continuación de la vida. Con matices de humor y de nostalgia, Diosa nos recuerda que nuestros difuntos nunca terminan de irse, el más allá, sigue siendo aquí, su influencia permanece.

-Beatriz Sánchez, poeta méxico estadounidense

Diosa X’s haunting bilingual poetry collection, “Conversations with the Dead” is imbued with the spirits we live with, but not all are welcome. Her poetry whispers in the wind and wards off evil. With playful rhymes and vivid imagery, she warns “calacas” off her man, and explores how love can be a curse and a cure. Gather around and read these poems out loud – you will be frightened, you will laugh, you will remember the hauntings you have survived, and if you are lucky, you will be remembered for seven generations. 

El poemario bilingüe de Diosa X, “Conversaciones con los Difuntos”, está impregnado con las voces de los espíritus con los que vivimos, pero no todos son bienvenidos. Sus poemas susurran al viento y repelan maldiciones. Con imágenes vividas y rimas juguetonas, está poeta advierte a calacas atrevidas y saca los malos espíritus de su cama. Sus poemas nos recuerdan que el amor puede ser una maldición o nos puede curar el alma. Lee estos poemas en voz alta y te dará miedo, te reirás, recordarás todos los embrujamientos que has sobrevivido, y tal vez, si tienes suerte, te llegarán a recordar por siete generaciones. 

-Jesenia Chávez, Los Angeles Chicana, educator and author of This Poem Might Save You (me). Find her at https://www.jeseniachavez.com

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EcoTheo Review – A Conversation of Spiritual Dimension: An Interview by Lisbeth Coiman

https://www.ecotheo.org/etreview/convospirit