Mexican Dinosaur invites you into a clandestine understanding of the Mexican-American experience. "They don't know that we've been gold." Mexican Dinosaur shoves you into a chair and hands you a plate full of tender morsels and gusto. Here, "Rooster" Martinez unapologetically builds out connections to contemporary ideas on Mejicanos; "we are born mid-stride - outrunning the clock, the hounds, the hours and overtime." This collection adds a bend and a breath into all things rasquache with dignity and light. Mexican Dinosaur cannot be ignored. This collection should be celebrated for reminding us that Mexican-Americans "don't act like anyone else's song." Punto. Final.

Lupe Mendez, 2022 Texas Poet Laureate

From its fire-tongued opening line to its melting-blacktop close, Mexican Dinosaur celebrates a new mythos-one where the collision of two worlds lets loose a god-voice, a "sacred language that survives any apocalypse." This collection shows us what it means to repurpose, reauthenticate, reclaim. These poems bear witness to a legacy we are compelled to both honor & create. They say: "forgetting is a prayer our hands do not know."

Junious 'Jay' Ward, 2023 Charlotte, NC Poet Laureate, 2019 Individual World Poetry Slam Champion

This is a Texas sized snake fist punching old folktales & inventing new ones. These poems are for the weirdos, the outsiders, the nerds who think they're cool & the cool kids who think they're nerds. It's a road map for people who find themselves in rock & hip hop lyrics & stand in the intersection of being Mexican, being Mexican-American, being from Texas & being from San Antonio, which are all similar & yet very different. Martinez will teach you old magic chants & choruses of A Tribe Called Quest, all the while driving down Highway 151 with his fist in the air like the last scene in your favorite movie.

Bonafide Rojas, Poet, Musician & Author of Notes On The Return

To The Island

Publisher: Write about Now Publishing

Pub date: 2023-10-24

Length: 104 pages