Community of Writers Podcasts

Bibliocracy Radio: Poet Gustavo Hernandez on Bachelor

Community of Writers Season 5 Episode 3

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 28:49

My guest this week is poet Gustavo Hernandez, last on this show to discuss his breakout poetry collection Flower Grand First. He is out now with Bachelor, six dozen short poems, many of which appeared in leading journals, here assembled thanks to FlowerSong press. The poet Diane Seuss, a big fan, helpfully celebrates the conceit of these poems, in which “the speaker moves like a ghost, from affiliation to singularity and back again, from son, brother, uncle, lover, to a state of profound bachelorhood, a traveler moving through a house of mirrors who encounters and re-encounters himself.” Indeed, these poems, with a carefully insistent throughline and in conversation with themselves, are about person and place, both prismatic and somehow also panoramic. Born in Jalisco, Mexico, Gustavo Hernandez was raised in Santa Ana, where he still lives and has served as the poet laureate of Orange County, California.

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.