Willie Perdomo, Poet

Willie Perdomo

African American Literature Book Club - The #1 Site for "Readers of Black Literature"

Home • Back • Author Home • Up • Next • Author Profiles • Book Profiles • Writer's Resources • Reviews • Events • About Us • Buy Any Book • Advertise

, "Yo soy Boricua! Yo soy Africano! I ain't/ lyin'. Pero mi pelo is kinky y curly y mi skin no es negro pero it can pass . . ."
~Willie Perdomo, from Nigger-Reecan Blues

Willie Perdomo is one of the new voices to emerge from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. The poems in this debut collection meet at the intersection of the street and the academy. In a powerful mix of love and fear, rage and tenderness, verse and prose, the poet invites us to "hang out" in the 'hood as he bears witness to life in East Harlem. These poems are raw slices of street served on a fused platter of salsa and hip-hop, Black Spanglish, letters and songs, invoking prophets, saints, poets, hustlers, basketball legends. Willie Perdomo is a cutting-edge bard who speaks to the soul of his generation. (from the book jacket of Where a Nickel Costs a Dime: Poems)

Where a Nickel Costs a Dime: Poems
Click to order via Amazon

Format: Paperback, 128pp.
ISBN: 0393313832
Publisher: Norton,Ww
Pub. Date: January 1996
Edition Desc: BOOK & CD

Drawing on rap, jazz, Langston Hughes and the rhythms of the streets, this collection bristles with congas, timbales, police sirens and wino oracles, "singing a celebration of the island/ that some of us will never see." In poems that are scalding, toxic and dizzying, Perdomo reminds us that there is something wrong when feeling joy suggests mangled sanity: "I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I noticed I went to more funerals than parties this summer."
―excerpted from Publishers Weekly Review

Visiting Langston
Click to order via Amazon

Willie Perdomo (Author), Bryan Collier (Illustrator),

ISBN: 0805067442
Format: Hardcover, 32pp
Pub. Date: January 2002
Publisher: Henry Holt & Company, Incorporated
Edition Description: 1ST

A 2003 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Award Winner

A little girl and her father visit the house where acclaimed African-American poet Langston Hughes lived. A poet herself, the girl is thrilled. This beautifully illustrated story is a great introduction to the legendary writer.

"Today I'm going to wear
My favorite pink blouse
I'm going with my daddy
To visit Langston's house."

It's a special day when a little girl and her father go to visit the house where the great poet Langston Hughes lived-especially when the little girl is a poet herself!

This rhythmic tale is a wonderful introduction to the work and world of Langston Hughes, who was a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance and an American cultural hero.

Perdomo's work may also be found in:

Step into a World: A Global Anthology of the New Black Literature
Kevin Powell Editor
(click to order from Barnes and Noble)

Format: Hardcover, 470pp.
ISBN: 0471380601
Publisher: Wiley, John & Sons, Incorporated
Pub. Date: October 2000

The best work of hip-hop generation writers captured in a single volume

Listen up!: Spoken Word Poetry
(click to buy on line)

Author: Zoe Angelsey (Editor), Yusef Komunyakaa (Introduction)
Publisher: Ballantine Books, Inc.
Date Published: March 1999
Format: Trade Paper

"Today, the poetry scene flourishes at New York open-mic spots like the Nuyorican Poets Café, Brooklyn's YWCA Tea Party and Harlem's Sugar Shack. Progeny of hip poets--the Beats of the 50s and protest poets of the 60s and 70s--these up-and-coming literati cast their diverse spells of word beats inspiring young contemporaries in Cleveland, Ohio, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta; later branching out internationally to poetry circuit venues in Tokyo, Rio de Janiero, London, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Istanbul."
~ Zoë Anglesey

Click to read more about this book