Portrait of the Artist as a Brown Man

"Jose Hernandez Diaz's poems cut through the modern acrobatics of the dazzling poetry parade in service of a straightforward and boldly honest approach. With cool constraint, he ‘abandons the hierarchies' of language and chisels out the diamonds of our menial lives, ‘not for the ego's sake, but for love.’ And because of this, we trust his witness, his testimony of the people and places that populate this worthy collection."
-Tim Z. Hernandez, author of Some of the Light

“What joys, what celebrations, and what tributes await the reader of Jose Hernandez Diaz’s Portrait of the Artist as a Brown Man. Through a voice of such intense clarity, Diaz utilizes both the ode and the prose poem as methods of defiance—pushing back against oppressive forces while creating poetic space for homage, as well as new, more nuanced histories; James Joyce, Lorca, Neruda, Holden Caulfield, Joséeacute; Emilio Pacheco, and Mrs. Weir, a high school English teacher, are just some of the literary cast of characters that are recontextualized in worlds that are surreal, at times absurd, and existential. The various speakers in the collection are in search for their sense of belonging while external forces constantly remind them of their otherness. Poetry. Poetry is where the speaker lands, finds his place, and invites us in. Ultimately, a directive in the midst of social and political unrest: ‘we must remember not to be loaded weapons aimed at each other.”
—Iliana Rocha, author of The Many Deaths of Inocencio Rodriguez