Matthew Cuban Hernandez

Matthew ‘Cuban’ Hernandez is a poet, emcee, speaker, actor, and performance coach from Jacksonville, Florida. He has toured as far as Abu Dhabi and nearly every major city in the United States and Europe, performing, teaching and coaching poetry. A teaching artist for nearly ten years, Matthew has spent the last six years working in youth detention centers across Los Angeles County, currently serving as the Director of Camp Programming for Street Poets, Inc. In addition, he is a current Lead Teacher and Co-Founder of Spoken Literature Art Movement. Cuban has opened for artists such as Wu-Tang, performed for platforms such as BuzzFeed and NPR and even appeared on the award-winning television show, Better Things. Matthew is also a three time Southern Fried poetry slam champion and an award-winning poetry coach. Cuban’s favorite activity is making people feel great; sometimes he does this through hip hop and poetry. Source

a safe space

My favorite game is

Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

I would start when i was feeling bad,

finished when I was fine.

I could tell my mom was sad.

She’s in the kitchen crying,

I made promises, told her

I would fix it with my rhymes.

Hey mama. You wouldn’t

let me play it, right? Not until

I got my grades up, I studied

day and night.

Finally, when the day came,

I only played it twice

spoiled, wanted newer games

but couldn’t even pay the lights.

She told me keep my goals in sight,

told me keep my vision tight.

She must have seen me on that mic,

on that night I came alive—

13 years old and gave that open mic some life,

my daddy said don’t

rot my brain, but I did it anyway.

Published:

2018

Length:

Regular

Literary Movements:

Contemporary

Anthology Years:

2023

Themes:

Ars Poetica

Childhood & Coming of Age

Family

Mental Health