In the FPP Interview with poet Willie Perdomo, whose new book of poems THE CRAZY BUNCH (Penguin Poets, 2019) was just published this month, we hear about his Harlems, his hopes, and his love of “we as broken as colonization has made us,” among other topics. Come to Silvana on Sunday, April 28th to hear Perdomo read with Chaya Bhuvaneswar, Jericho Brown, Veronica Liu, Holly Masturzo, and Alexandra Watson. Admission is free. See you at 6pm!

From Where a Nickel Costs a Dime to The Crazy Bunch, you’ve claimed your glorious space on the Harlem map. Tell us about your Harlems. If you came up to Mt. Morris Park to hear the drumming, did it feel like border crossing?  No, it felt like a homecoming.  The only border seemed to be 96th St.  My Harlems speak two languages and has a double-swag; it can also hang out all night.

You live and work in New Hampshire. Where is home for you now? How do you know this?  Home is where my family lives.  But my family is extended.  This new book has been very much like homecoming.  When your boys show up at a book party, you have to do away with all pretension.

In the poem “Ghost Face” you write “no use in total recall’. In 2019, are there topics or people you know you’ve forgotten, or that you write around on purpose? [Why or why not?]  There is purposefulness to forgetting, for sure.  But I’m not writing around as much as I’m writing to.

David Tomas Martinez’s “Post Traumatic Hood Disorder” gets a nod in these pages. PTHD feels present in these poems. Same for survivor’s remorse. Do you feel this in your everyday life? Or does the writing heal?  David’s book set up a new category of trauma that some of us might have seen as normal.  But I would never put pressure on the writing to heal.  Expand, maybe.

What is your language of tenderness? Does this change?  Joy infused with humor, reflection, and compassion.

It’s 2019. What gives you hope? What gives you pause?  HOPE: My wife’s memoir. My two sons who are holding on to their respective dreams, and my 5 year-old daughter who can quote Cardi B.  PAUSE: the role that fear is playing in our collective psyche.

What American crises keeps you up at night?  Growing militias.

You brought poets together for multiple events to raise money and awareness for Puerto Rico post-Hurricane Maria. What have you learned in the aftermath? Is there anything that surprised you? About raising money or bring poets together?  In the instance of the first #PoetsforPuertoRico event, I discovered that Pablo Neruda was right: Poetry is truly like bread.

Is there a piece of writing– yours or someone else’s–that really speaks to your experiences these days?  Ray Baretto’s Together. 

What should the future be?  Whatever it promises not to be.

When do you feel most “we”? When do you feel most “I”?  When I’m uptown.

Do you have any trouble with the “we”?  Love the “we” as broken as colonization has made us.  But that should be a preferred pronoun, no?  We.

Who are writers that we should be reading right now?  Cynthia Oka, Javier Zamora, Cortney Lamar Charleston, Joseph Rios, John Murillo, Aracelis Girmay, Andres Cerpa, Raquel Salas Rivera, and I could go on…

What advice would you give emerging writers today?  Read.  And then read some more.