We Are the Ones Possessed

Reviews / Votes

"Cepeda's atmospheric poems evoke an image of death that's horrific and lovely, which I believe is fundamentally an optimism. We Are the Ones Possessed is not only an honor to many literary women; it's an image of death as something more beautiful than it is-a death beyond death, its redemption." - Charlene Elsby, author of PSYCHROS & HEXIS from CLASH Books

"The "little death" of orgasm isn't so small after all in Adrian Ernesto Cepeda's We Are the Ones Possessed. With the historical awareness of a cento and the contemporality of a soundbite, Cepeda explores the knotted entanglement of poetry's two age-old obsessions--sex and death--with an eye toward tying the knot tighter rather than separating terror from pleasure. "Waiting under the mistletoe with a knife," this book rubs romance against bare mortality until the two fuse inextricably--a marriage too often relegated to the realms of erotica and gore. Cepeda reminds us, such a union is the home of poets, where horror and desire cuddle up together, swap spit, and let the boundary between them blur." - Dylan Krieger, author of Soft-Focus Slaughterhouse

"Adrian Ernesto Cepeda's poems always leave me breathless; We Are the Ones Possessed is no different. The lines can be mistakenly simple but say so much-like watching snow fall over a lake. Lines like "I suggest we roll down/the windows, reverse/our front seat" create gorgeous images while also narrating the mundane yet poignant moments in our lives. This book tells us how we possess ourselves and others-and how no one gets away unscathed." - Joanna C. Valente, author of A LOVE STORY, No(body), Sexting Ghosts, and Sirs & Madams