Out of California’s Great Central Valley comes the bold new poetic voice of Tim Hernandez, already an established performance poet and community activist. Skin Tax is a powerful print debut of a poet with a mature and complex talent immersed in the themes of a young male wrestling with his sensitivity and the societal pressures surrounding male sexuality, violence, and machismo. Emotionally wrenching dilemmas are transformed through Hernadez’s verbal sorcery, a style marked by the sharp, taut sounds of a performance poet mixed with an accomplished lyricism grounded in the harsh realties of the Central Valley.
Skin Tax
The bold poetic voice of Tim Hernandez
Advance Praise
“Tim Hernandez' language is alive. He leaps from the page. It struts, it storms, it seduces.”
—Linda Watanabe McFerrin, author of Namako: Sea Cucumber
“Namby-pamby poetry this is not. There's a danger of shun and shutter here, there's a risk of touching a burn. Reading these poems strengthens the hope that maybe we'll finally emerge from our tin cans and give the hard shoe to those who tell us life should be safe.”
—Victor Martinez, author of Parrot in the Oven: mi vida
About the Author
Tim Z. Hernandez grew up in Visalia and was catapulted into a life of writing and performance art after the tragic death of his much beloved uncle. Hernandez is the recipient of two awards, the Best Solo Production of 2003 Award for his one-man show “Skin Tax: Diaries of a Macho,” and the James D. Phelan Award for best manuscript by an emerging writer.
