Bad Mexican, Bad American

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 âEURœdisadvantaged Brown kidâEUR. takes wing in prose poems that recall and celebrate that formâEUR(TM)s ties to Surrealism. With influences like Alberto RÃos and Ray Gonzalez on one hand, and James Tate and Charles Baudelaire on the other, the collection spectacularly combines âEURœhighâEUR. art and folk art in a way that collapses those distinctions, as in the poem âEURœMy Date with Frida KahloâEUR. : âEURœFrida 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. âEUR. Bad Mexican, Bad American demonstrates how having roots in more than one culture can be both unsettling and rich: van Gogh and Beethoven share the page with tattoos, graffiti, and rancheras; Quetzalcoatl shows up at Panda Express; a Mexican American child who has never had a Mexican American teacher may become that teacher; a parentâEUR(TM)s âEURœbrokenâEUR. English is beautiful and masterful. Blending reality with dream and humility with hope, Hernandez Diaz contributes a singing strand to the complex cultural weave that is twenty-first-century poetry.