Amy Gerstler writes that Plasticville “provides readers with a model train tour of a fastidiously kept alternative world where fixation provides temporary relief from the pain and confusion of growing up human.”[4] In her review of The Late Show in the Los Angeles Times, Lizzie Skurnick praises Trinidad as “a meticulous curator of pop-culture flotsam—silver-screen sirens, Barbie, '60s-era lip gloss—and his autobiographical verse is a graceful, merry wink to gay culture.”[5] Assessing Dear Prudence in Bookforum, poet Ange Mlinko states, “How Trinidad molds fanboy longings into sophisticated forms, dousing them with liberal California light and his own temperamental sweetness, is his secret and his achievement.”[6] Both Plasticville and Dear Prudence were nominated for the Lambda Literary Award in Poetry, and Plasticville was a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize.
In addition to his own books, Trinidad has edited several volumes of poetry, including A Fast Life: The Collected Poems of Tim Dlugos (2011), which won a Lambda Literary Award.
"[7] Trinidad's latest edited volume, Punk Rock Is Cool for the End of the World: Poems and Notebooks of Ed Smith, was published in June 2019.
David L. Ulin, reviewing the book for the Los Angeles Times, describes it as "a back-and-forth between despair and aspiration, ecstasy and degradation: a lens (or set of lenses) on the shards that make a life.
The poet James Schuyler wrote, “Trinidad turns the paste jewels of pop art into the real thing.”[9] His work is also associated with the innovative formalism of the New York School.