top of page

A Lesson in Geometry

Jose Hernandez Diaz

Yesterday, I went to the Whittier Library

to pick up reading material

for the spring season:

Seuss, Limón, Mullen, Ray Gonzalez;

I placed my card on the clerk’s desk.

“Do you still live at 12120 Barranca Ln.?”

he said. “Mind your business,” I countered.

“What’s that?” he asked. “You need

to have patience with novels,” I retreated.

“Everything is like that.”


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). His work appears in The American Poetry Review, Border Crossing (CAN), Cincinnati Review, Circulo de Poesia (MEX), Gigantic Sequins, The Hooghly Review (IND), Huizache, The Iowa Review, The London Magazine (ENG), The Missouri Review, The Moth (IRE), The Nation, Poetry Magazine, Poetry Wales(UK), The Progressive, The Southern Review, TriQuarterly, The Yale Review, Witness, and in The Best American Nonrequired Reading. He teaches generative workshops for Hugo House, Lighthouse Writers Workshops, The Writer's Center, and elsewhere. He serves as a Poetry Mentor in The Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program.

bottom of page