"My favorite form of poetry is honesty."
About
Matthew ‘Cuban’ Hernandez is a poet, emcee, speaker, 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 over fifteen years, Matthew has spent the last ten 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.
Educator.
Since the age of 17, teaching at a Boys & Girls Club in Jacksonville, Fl, Matthew has been dedicated to a life of educating the youth via poetry. At that very young age, Hernandez founded Shattered Thought, a youth poetry slam and mentoring organization that eventually contracted with the Duval County Juvenile Court Program to provide writing and performance workshops. Recently, he's extended his education to the world of hip hop, using both hip hop and poetry as tools to empower young people and help them find the power in their own, necessary voices.
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Some of Matthew's additional highlights as an educator include:
current Manager of Camp Programming and teaching artist for Street Poets, Inc.
a residency with Leeds Young Authors (Leeds, West Yorkshire, England)
Four Corners 2018 Teaching Artist Fellowship
previous Manager of Arts Education, teaching artist and head coach for Get Lit - Words Ignite
previous Lead Instructor and Arts Program Educator for New Earth.
successfully completed the "3032 Kickstarter Campaign" sending over $17,000 of free books to mostly incarcerated and previously incarcerated youth worldwide
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Additional highlights.
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appeared on season 3 of award-winning tv show, Better Things
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Unheard LA 89.33 KPCC speaker
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coached multiple youth and adult national and international poetry slam teams to semi-finals and final stages
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serves on the Art Share-LA Theater Committee
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co-host at Da Poetry Lounge
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Director of Juvenile Programing for Street Poets INC
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Author of "3032"
©2023 by Matthew Cuban Hernandez.