"DIOSA XOCHIQUETZALCÓATL is a poet that brings history, culture, and scars to the party of new beginnings. Every poem is the sound of laughter and tears, evoking courage to move past barriers, comfort, and fear, building new homes from old shadows that always protect us as long as we bring them to the party."
- Caesar k. Avelar author of God Of The Air Hose And Other Blue Collar Poems, and Poet Laureate of Pomona, CA.
"West of The Santa Ana and Other Sacred Places doesn't stand still. Este libro es poesía en marcha. Her third collection of poetry is a call to follow Diosa through time and landmarks not specific to any map with defined latitude and longitude. Diosa's poems are a perpetual movement of emotion and place. Start at the beginning and visit the dream she was born of and the ancestral memory carried in our DNA. Run through dichos, children's songs, and the shadows of the very real Cucuy lurking in the neighborhoods that Diosa's poetic soul lives in. Discover how anger can travel through the womb and let love catch you on the other side of a poem. "
- Aideed Medina, Author of 31 Hummingbird
"Diosa's poems in "West of the S.A. and other Sacred Places," is an InLakech between pages leading us to notice basuritas out in the alleyways of So-Cal, as well as bring voice to the ghosts of the citrus fields of North Orange County labored by Mexican and Native hands. Sweet memories of orange grooves are spell-casted in the naming of "invisible borderlands" "mexican panaderias" and "tent-city galore." The reader may taste the mist of tequila rhymes, MEChistA rage, and the airy waters of Southern California's largest natural river, the Santa Ana river. Diosa's poems are her very own mélange of fierce feminine thunder over cacti."
-Iuri M. Lara
"Diosa takes us on a viaje suave through herstory with precision and lyrical prowess. Generational curses, love of place, and vocal chakras made me laugh and nod with approval of facts and remembrance. This short collection of poems is to be read out loud and shared."
-Edward Vidaurre, Author of Cry, Howl and Pandemia & Other Poems
"As someone who is from west of the Santa Ana River, I enjoy voices that speak of this river. Diosa Xochiquetzalcoatl narrates how she's went with the flow, which led her northeast of Santa Ana River to Rancho Paraiso De Las Diosas, where nature is let be. Diosa once made a place further west of the Santa Ana home, known for its mall and buses that travel into near La Habra (closer to Santa Ana River) and Downtown LA. West of the Santa Ana And Other Sacred Places teaches that it's okay to migrate to polar horizontal opposites of the Santa Anas, and it's okay not to be destined to be rooted. As Diosa continues to flow east and west of Santa Anas, she lets us know we should share a grain with one another in this sacred world because water is what unites us all."
-Jesse Tovar, Editor, Lit Stack, litstack.substack.com
"Diosa's poetry takes us to a place called home - where she recalls the beauty of "brown pride" and what it is like to be a Mexican living in Guada La Habra, just west of Santa Ana. She recalls the panaderias and her tia Consuelo's homemade flour tortillas, the Mexican families that live by the railroads, the migrant farmworkers nestled among the groves of citrus trees.
Her voice is one of an activist, a feminist, a womanist and her characters reject misogyny and patriarchal expectations as they say no to marriage and no to domestic duties, as if expressing, "A la fregada con esas cosas" and clearly saying goodbye to all the "suckas," men who failed the strong, independent, female narrator."
-Professor Donato Martinez, Author of Touch the Sky
