Description

Cleveland State University Poetry Center, paperback

Publication Date: October 10, 2023

Publisher Marketing:

A demonic excavation of self and world, THE DEVIL’S WORKSHOP finds its lifeblood in the throes of exorcism, modeling an antidote to the paths of redemption and respectability politics. Performed by the mother figure who speaks in tongues, spiritual purge becomes synonymous with writing when it renders the poets body amplified and released, disintegrating the very word in lines that blow up in the middle of the book. If it is a relief to get lost in Xavier Cavazos drug-fueled hauntingsto wander through his meditations on race, sex, and Gringolandiait is because I am starved for poetry this full-throated and blasphemously aware.
Lucas De Lima

Cavazos super-poet power is the ability to hold all the shapes a mind and heart can inhabitfrom fantastic to frightening, loving to longing, nightmare to dream. The poems in The Devils Workshop move like restless octopusescasting lines across pages then squeezing through a crack of lightletter by letter, drop by drop. This book is at once a dance, a swan dive, a eulogy, and a sance calling the Spirits of Multi-perversions back home again.
Jennifer L. Knox

THE DEVIL’S WORKSHOP evades the single story of trauma caused by substance disorder. In Cavazos poems, all the slung arrows have been dipped in profound love, reflection, and form. Immerse yourself in the sizzle of Cavazos vision as he forces you into a confrontation with your demons. If you booked a reservation to the Inferno, consider yourself lucky to have Cavazos as your guide.
Willie Perdomo

Bearing brute force, THE DEVIL’S WORKSHOP renders ritual as unfurling rhizome, drip by drip, as testament deciphers blood. In the gleaming switchblade of hallucinated rebirths, Cavazos knows the low is visceral. Sub-totems of creatured selves appear as animal-entrail-son-demon, My daddy was a full-of-disaster amigo-amigo. This book takes a plunge through the unbreakable acts of our human constraints for a chance at healing through poetrys darkness.
Edwin Torres

Xavier Cavazos is one of poetrys great treasures! There is a magical wave waiting for us to ride in this book! An electrical shock hit my mouth like jumpstart. If poetry that hits the heart with accuracy is what you are looking for, THE DEVIL’S WORKSHOP will sing you to the singed edges of the world.
CAConrad