Speaking con su Sombra: The Magic of La Poesia

By Adrian Ernesto Cepeda

“I think poetry is a way of carrying grief, but it’s also a way of putting it somewhere so I don’t always have to heave it onto my back or in my body. The more I put grief in a poem, the more I am able to move freely through the world because I have named it, spoken it, and thrown it out into the sky.”

— Ada Limón, interviewed by Lauren LeBlanc for BOMB Magazine

Ada Limón is so right. For years I grieved for the passing and loss of mi Mami. I carried the grief for so long it weighed and haunted me durante muchos años. It wasn't until I channeled my grief and started to write and create the poems that would become Speaking con su Sombra, I felt something magically transformative happening on and off the page.

For so long, I feared writing and reading aloud any of the poems that dealt with mi Mami's death. When I reached out, through our epistolary communication, asking mi Mami to finish Sombra con migo, this was a turning point for me. I have Ruth Ozeki to thank for this realization when she said, “The ancient Greeks believed that when you read aloud, it was actually the dead, borrowing your tongue, in order to speak again.”

I discovered the poems were culling together, she was not only speaking through me, but guiding and inspiring me along the way to the culmination, the publication of this poetry collection which we created together. When I read these poems, mi Mami’s presence, her voz, her laughter, her eternal glow lives inside these pages. It took sometime but, although she was not here, when I began embracing a new relationship with mi Mami through my writing, it was a milestone that began a new stage of the healing process for me as a poet and her hijo.

Working on this project with her, I also realized that this pain I was feeling for mi Mami's loss was not unique to me. The poems in this collection are about the universality of mourning. Speaking is an invitation to those who have lost loved ones during this past year. Sombra is a living ode as I honor Mi Mami’s life, her passing, her inspiration, her guidance, and the gift of her legacy within the poems in this collection. As I remember the memoria of mi Mami, I am hoping these poemas can also honor those who have lost loved ones in their familias.

Mi Mami has been with me inspiring me while writing and also through the publication process, she was there with me, as the lights flickered while I read one of her poems during my first poetry event in two years at Take2: A Collaboration between The Panamanian International Film Festival/LA and East LA Film Fest. It was magical. The fear I had years ago of reading these poems dissolved as I felt mi Mami in my voice as I recited these poems, she was there, with me, guiding me in this new stage of promoting Sombra together.

It was not just a few weeks back, I could feel Mi Mami there with me yesterday, celebrating during the birth of our book. As I snapped the photo below, you can see her green corazon, her heart that inspired Speaking con su Sombra is visible a glowing green light on the cover of the book we made together. She is always with me, and I could not have made and finished Speaking con su Sombra without her guidance and inspiration from the other side.

For many of us who craft poetry as our passionate profession can attest, there is magic en la poesia. My new poetry book Speaking su Sombra is proof of this. Before I started this project, I had no idea the grief and the pain of mi Mami’s death could create this book that I hope will help readers find some solace in the agony they have are experiencing in your lives.

J. Arroyo once said, “Medicines and surgery may cure, but only reading and writing poetry can heal.” This is the magic healing gift one can experience from reading poetry, it’s a mirror, where you connect with the voice on the page while realizing someone else loves, hurts and aches like I do. I feel your dolor. The Pain of grieving is what brought Sombra to life and by reading my new bilingual poetry collection, not only healing but I hope mis poemas will be Speaking with you. For all the hurt I’ve experienced to feel, the magic and power of these Sombra poems helped me to realize, I know I am not the only one.

Adrian Ernesto Cepeda is the author of Speaking con su Sombra published in 2021 by Alegría Publishing, La Belle Ajar, a collection of cento poems inspired by Sylvia Plath's 1963 novel, published in 2020 by CLASH Books, Between the Spine a collection of erotic love poems published with Picture Show Press, the full-length poetry collection Flashes & Verses...Becoming Attractions from Unsolicited Press and the poetry chapbook So Many Flowers, So Little Time from Red Mare Press. And, CLASH Books is publishing the much-anticipated poetry collection, We Are the Ones Possessed, in 2022.