On today's show we have a conversation between authors Vincent Toro and Willie Perdomo. Vincent Toro’s new poetry collection TERTULIA examines immigration, economics, colonialism and race via the sublime imagery of music, visual art, and history. Willie Perdomo is a prize-winning poet, whose new collection THE CRAZY BUNCH chronicles a weekend in the life of a group of friends coming of age in East Harlem at the dawn of the hip-hop era. Now let's join these authors as they discuss their backgrounds, inspirations, and the power of poetry.

In the early 1990s, Willie Perdomo was a teenager growing up in East Harlem. He saw and experienced firsthand a tumultuous moment in New York City, including the crack epidemic and the consequences of the war on drugs. In his latest book of poetry, "The Crazy Bunch," Perdomo wrangles with that history and the ghosts of that time. Latino USA's Antonia Cereijido takes a walk with Perdomo through his old neighborhood of Harlem to discuss his teenage years and how memories of that time inspired his newest work.

This story originally aired in July of 2019.

The Cornerstore spoke with José Olivarez & Willie Perdomo, 2 editors of The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext, about their current experience with releasing this new anthology into the world right now. José & Willie also express what kind of conversations they hope this book will cause; what it was like working so closely together; and much more.

The Cornerstore spoke with José Olivarez & Willie Perdomo, 2 editors of The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext, about their current experience with releasing this new anthology into the world right now. José & Willie also express what kind of conversations they hope this book will cause; what it was like working so closely together; and much more.

https://serve.castfire.com/audio/3750616/3750616_2020-04-27-013216.64kmono.mp3

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• Poet José Olivarez
• Poet Willie Perdomo at his home in Exeter, NH
  Daffys and Paperwhites

This is a different time. I know it’s not specific enough, but it’s specific enough for you to understand. The colossal breakdown of morals and decency in government agency looks to me like we’re trapped and on track towards a worldwide holocaust. I said it once before in this Letter to the President, we, the people, we have nowhere else to run…but millions are, we’re moving in circles because the earth is round. The past week has been intense. Puerto Rican families are being displaced, my own included, I welcomed three into my home - the elder, the frail, the women and children, the strong father, the young, an exodus.

Blue tarps are needed in Puerto Rico. The island needs over 40,000 blue tarps and they are not getting delivered. The reasons vary. I have gotten news of this need a couple of times a week since the hurricane. The video link is from Friday. The reasons vary, from there isn’t enough humanitarian inventory to FEMA taking too much time inputting inventory clearance. The news here and there trickles out. Still no blue tarps, more rain has fallen, and people continue to lose more of what they don’t have. The news of need of tarps has been traveling around since a bit after September 20. I say there needs to be an alliance of middle-big agencies that together should place an industrial order of blue tarps and work together to distribute. The shadow ‘strok’ distribution system still stands. What an image...

Which brings me to poetry. Poets, poems, and writers say it best. Artists in general capture quagmire like no else, which is why we need them. I have spoken with so many people in the past month I’m trying to piece together a cohesive picture, but what I get is a fractured cohesive piece of feeling. Willie and I had a great talk but the sound sucked. I kept about 10 minutes of our talk because Willie was so sincere and the sound was at its best.

#PoetsforPuertoRico will raise funds for Comedores Sociales de Puerto Rico. A who’s-who of Poetry will gather on November 4th at Poetry House for a reading for Hurricane Relief.

I have more to share and will, I just have not had time. In the meantime. Here’s acclaimed Willie Perdomo.

Willie Perdomo is the author of Where a Nickel Costs a Dime (Norton, 1996) and Smoking Lovely (Rattapallax, 2003), which won the 2004 PEN American Beyond Margins Award. His work has been included in several anthologies including Poems of New York, The Harlem Reader and Metropolis Found. His work has also appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Bomb, and PEN America: A Journal for Writers and Readers. He is also the author of Visiting Langston, a Coretta Scott King Honor Book for Children, illustrated by Bryan Collier. He has been featured on several PBS documentaries including Words in Your Face and The United States of Poetry and has appeared on HBO’s “Def Poetry Jam” and BET’s “Hughes’ Dream Harlem.” Perdomo is the recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts Fiction and Poetry Fellowships. He currently teaches at Friends Seminary and Bronx Academy of Letters.

Perdomo read in Cornell’s Goldwin Smith Hall on August 30, 2007. This interview took place earlier the same day.