12 or 20 (second series) questions with 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), The Parachutist (Sundress Publications, 2025) and Portrait of the Artist as a Brown Man (Red Hen Press, 2025). He has been published in The American Poetry Review, The Yale Review, The London Magazine, Poetry Wales, The Iowa Review, Huizache, Círculo de Poesía, Periódico de Poesía, The Missouri Review, Epoch Magazine, The Nation, Poetry, The Progressive, Poets.org, The Southern Review, 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.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

I actually started with short fiction in high school and undergrad. My last semester of undergrad I took a poetry workshop with C. S. Giscombe. It was interesting but I was still very new to poetry. After I graduated with an English degree I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I started going to the public library where I discovered contemporary Poets of Color. Octavio Paz. Marcus Wicker. Joy Harjo. Francisco X. Alarcon. Alurista. Victoria Chang. That’s when I realized I could not only study poetry but write it as well.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

I usually start with a title or a striking image. I often like to write about iconic Mexican and Mexican American imagery or symbols like boxing, piñatas, sombreros, mariachis, jaguars, famlia, etc. Also, in my prose poetry, I tend to create characters and write from persona and third person, like the Man in a Pink Floyd Shirt or the Man in a “Kafka for President” Shirt.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

I enjoy doing readings in moderation. Sometimes they can be surprising and thrilling. Sometimes they can be disappointing and low turnout. Sometimes I have social anxiety. Sometimes I embrace it and go with the flow. Oftentimes, though, I spend more time on writing and reading and teaching than performing.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

“Don’t compare yourself to others.” I heard Eduardo C. Corral tweet that before and I think it is solid advice.

10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

Right now a lot of my writing has been responding to prompts I create for my generative workshops.

11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

Prompts. Reading. Music. Space. Time away from writing.

Not looking for it. When it finds me it will come.

Maybe I need time away from it?

12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

From childhood? Chlorine from the pool in the apartments I grew up in. From adolescence: pan dulce from the panderia.

13 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

MF DOOM, Chicano Batman, Ramon Ayala, The Get Up Kids (music), the beach (nature), Philosophy (academics), Picasso, Kahlo, Rivera, ASCO, Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner, Basquiat, my friends who wrote graffiti for DFLK, JPAK…

15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

Teach full-time at an MFA Program, working with up and coming poets!

16 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

Maybe boxing or guitarist, not for brutalist reasons, but I would’ve had to have started young.

18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

Instructions for the Soon-to-be Beheaded by Shivani Mehta. The Williams Sisters movie a couple years ago brought me to tears; inspirational.

19 - What are you currently working on?

Teaching workshops online. Readings and interviews for Bad Mexican, Bad American. The Parachutist (Sundress Publications, 2025); Portrait of the Artist as a Brown Man (Red Hen Press, 2025).

12 or 20 (second series) questions;