"When the Greater American People (from Alaska to Patagonia) finally emerge, the world will point to cultural-political imaginations like Alfred Arteaga's as having been essential to that epic story. The scintillating linguistic achievements in these works urge us towards a post-national (post-surveillance) commons where intertwined destinies can freely sing and dance."–Rodrigo Toscano, author of Explosion Rocks Springfield
"Alfred Arteaga's poems have the courage of dislocation, moved in underworld descent, migration, prophecy, protest, starry skies, and heteroglossia. Gathered at last into a single book, Xicancuicatl is an epic cycle for our times."–Edgar Garcia, author of Skins of Columbus: A Dream Ethnography
"Xicancuicatl collects some of the most challenging and beautiful poetry from the last fin de siècle, but it does so without a whiff of museum mustiness because the topics and tactics engaged by Arteaga speak directly to a world energized by a new understanding of the urgency of addressing the social and political exigencies of race in poetry, and through poetic means."–Craig Dworkin, author of Dictionary Poetics: Toward a Radical Lexicography