The Write Process

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is the daughter of Mexican immigrants and the author of Incantation: Love Poems for Battle Sites (Mouthfeel Press) and Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge (Sundress Publications). A former Steinbeck Fellow and Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange winner, she’s received residencies from Hedgebrook, Ragdale, Yefe Nof, Jentel, and National Parks Arts Foundation in partnership with 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 and essays can be found at Acentos Review, Huizache, LA Review of Books, The Offing, [Pank], Santa Fe Writers Project, and other journals. She is the director of Women Who Submit. Inspired by her Chicana identity, she works to cultivate love and comfort in chaotic times.

At the heart of Incantation: Love Poems for Battle Sites (Mouthfeel Press 2023) lies an exploration of love in its many forms. Bermejo crafts poems that celebrate the enduring bonds of family, the unwavering strength of compassion, and the necessity for defiance. "Bermejo's Incantation do more than conjure hope for a vague future; they demand accountability and enact the healing we need now," writes award-winning author Carribean Fragoza. These poems dance like flames in rituals of resistance and resilience, casting light on paths that lead to a future unburdened by the chains of misogyny, white supremacy, and state-sanction violence.