David A. Romero
David A. Romero is a Mexican-American spoken word artist from Diamond Bar, CA. He is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of El Martillo Press. Romero is the author of My Name Is Romero (FlowerSong Press, 2020), Diamond Bars 2 (Moon Tide Press, 2024) and Diamond Bars: The Street Version (Dimlights Publishing, 2010). Romero has received honorariums from nearly a hundred colleges and universities in thirty-four different states in the USA and has also performed live in Mexico, Italy, and France. Romero's work has been published in literary magazines in the United States, Mexico, England, Scotland, Canada, and Hungary. Romero has opened for Latin Grammy winning bands Ozomatli and La Santa Cecilia. Romero's work has been published in anthologies alongside poets laureate Joy Harjo, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Luis J. Rodriguez, Jack Hirschman, and Tongo Eisen-Martin. Romero has won the Uptown Slam at the historic Green Mill in Chicago; the birthplace of slam poetry. Romero's poetry deals with family, identity, social justice issues, and Latinx culture.
Photo by Damon Casarez
David A. Romero has prepared the following titles for publication:
WE STILL BE: Poems and Performances (El Martillo Press, 2023), A Crown of Flames: Selected Poems & Aphorisms (El Martillo Press, 2023), God of the Air Hose and Other Blue-Collar Poems (El Martillo Press, 2023), the daughterland (El Martillo Press, 2023), Touch the Sky (El Martillo Press, 2023), Central American Book of the Dead/Libro centroamericano de los muertos (FlowerSong Press, 2023), AFRICANAMERICAN'T (FlowerSong Press, 2022), Wildflowers for the Bullies (FlowerSong Press, 2022), Beyond Existing (Say Word, 2016), July, Letters from Jane (Say Word, 2015), and Voices of Highland Park (Say What? Teen Poetry - Los Angeles Public Library, 2012).
BOOKING
To inquire about booking David A. Romero for a paid reading or workshop:
Yo soy Romero
Traducción al español de My Name Is Romero (FlowerSong Press, 2020). Gabriel González Núñez, traductor. Yo soy Romero (El Martillo Press, 2023) es el tercer poemario completo del poeta de "spoken word" mexicoamericano David A. Romero. En un mundo donde le pronuncian mal el apellido o tratan de definirlo por él, Romero opta por darle significado propio al apellido de su familia mediante una exploración de la historia familiar, los recuerdos de la niñez y los relatos de personas trabajadoras. Al hacerlo, Romero cuestiona sus propios prejuicios y los de les demás en referencia a lo que realmente significa ser mexicoamericane y latine. Yo soy Romero se extiende desde lo político hasta lo personal, con un alcance tanto íntimo como épico. El poemario incluye además una guía de diálogo para abordar temas como la pertenencia y la exclusión, el racismo y la solidaridad.
My Name Is Romero (FlowerSong Press, 2020) is the third full-length collection of poetry by Mexican-American poet and spoken word artist David A. Romero. In a world mispronouncing his name, or trying to define it for him, Romero digs through his family history, his childhood memories, and stories of working people, to create his own meaning for his family's name. In the process, Romero challenges his own prejudices as well as those of outsiders, as to what it means to be Mexican-American and Latinx. My Name Is Romero ranges from the political to the personal, with a scope both intimate and epic. My Name Is Romero also includes a discussion guide for conversations around its themes of belonging and exclusion, racism and solidarity.
The long-awaited sequel to the nationally-touring spoken word artist David A. Romero's full-length poetry debut Diamond Bars: The Street Version, Diamond Bars 2 is a novel in verse—a semi-autobiographical year-in-the-life of a poet protagonist working through grief, dealing with alcoholism, and coping with the fact that being a professional poet might not be all it's cracked up to be. Poems blend fact with fiction, serving up picaresque tales with recurring characters living out their own kind of limbo in Diamond Bar and its neighboring cities. A love letter to his hometown, Diamond Bars 2 paints vibrant portraits and landscapes of people and places known by the author; some long gone.
Diamond Bars: The Street Version (Dimlights Publishing, 2011) is the re-release of previous material, now published as a leaner and meaner volume. Diamond Bars: The Street Version will make you laugh, cry, get riled up and fall in love. It contains crowd pleasers like "Cheese Enchiladas" and "Diamond Bars." It has been reviewed by the Tony Award Winner Poetri, author of Up the Street, Around the Corner Besskepp, and West Cost Editor of Rock & Rap Confidential Lee Ballinger. It features cover art by Matthew V. Galarza and photographs by Gene Shockley.
Part traveler’s guide and part diary, Fuzhou takes the reader on a journey through the sights, sounds, smells and sensations of a faraway land. Fuzhou is the second collection of poetry from David A. Romero, chronicling the poet’s eight month stay in the Fujian Province of China. Fuzhou also includes The Story Poems, a grouping of poems coupled with illustrations by Audrey McNamara-Garcia, Matthew V. Galarza, and Megan Dong.
