Bad Mexican, Bad American - Poems

This collection of poems by Jose Hernandez Diaz showcases the unique style that has made him a rising star in the poetry community. In Bad Mexican, Bad American, the minimalist, working-class aesthetic of a -disadvantaged Brown kid- takes wing in prose poems that recall and celebrate that form-s ties to Surrealism. With influences like Alberto Ríos and Ray Gonzalez on one hand, and James Tate and Charles Baudelaire on the other, the collection spectacularly combines -high- art and folk art in a way that collapses those distinctions, as in the poem -My Date with Frida Kahlo-: -Frida and I had Cuban coffee and then vegetarian tacos. We sipped on mescal and black tea. At the end of the night, I tried to make a move on her. She feigned resistance at first but then aggressively kissed me back. We kissed for about thirty minutes beneath a protest mural by David Alfaro Siqueiros.-Bad Mexican, Bad American demonstrates how having roots in more than one culture can be both unsettling and rich: