Jose Hernandez Diaz
Jose Hernandez Diaz is a 2017 NEA Poetry Fellow. He is the author of The Fire Eater (Texas Review Press, 2020) Bad Mexican, Bad American (Acre Books, 2024) and The Parachutist (Sundress Publications, 2025). He has been published in The Yale Review, Poetry, Poetry Wales, The Southern Review, The London Magazine, The Iowa Review, The Journal, Colorado Review, TriQuarterly, Epoch Magazine and in The Best American Nonrequired Reading. He teaches generative workshops for Hugo House, Lighthouse Writers Workshops, The Writer's Center, and elsewhere. Additionally, he serves as a Poetry Mentor in The Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program.
The man in a faded beret rode his antique Schwinn Stingray to work, but it began to rain. The tires slithered thru the pebbled campus. When he finally arrived in the archaic philosophy department building, he practiced shadow boxing in a hallway mirror.
I like to keep the readers (and myself as I’m drafting) on our toes. I’m interested in the imaginative possibilities of associative leaps and discovering where a prose poem takes me and the reader. I want my work to be enjoyable to readers, not a chore, while still being a stimulating intellectual experience
January 14, 2024