Puerto Rican poet and educator Willie Perdomo was raised in East Harlem, New York. His mother’s extensive journaling was the young Perdomo’s first literary influence, and the stories, gossip, and eclectic music of his community in Spanish Harlem helped shape his poetic voice. He soon became part of New York City’s rich spoken-word poetry scene, attending open mics and performing at the legendary Nuyorican Poets Café and A Gathering of the Tribes. He received an MFA from Long Island University, Brooklyn.
Perdomo’s books include Smoking Lovely: The Remix (Haymarket Books, 2021), The Crazy Bunch (Penguin Random House, 2019), The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon (Penguin Random House, 2014), and Where a Nickel Costs a Dime (Norton, 1996). With Felicia Rose Chavez and José Olivarez, he was co-editor of the BreakBeat Poets anthology LatíNext (Haymarket Books, 2020). His children's book Visiting Langston (2005) received the Coretta Scott King Honor.
Perdomo is the winner of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Cy Twombly Award for Poetry, the New York City Book Award in Poetry, the PEN/Open Book Award, and the International Latino Book Award. He was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Poetry Society of America Norma Farber First Book Award. His work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Poetry, the Washington Post, Bomb, Best American Poetry 2019, and African Voices, among many other outlets.
Perdomo was State Poet of New York from 2021–2023, during which time he established the East Harlem Poetry Collective. He has received the Lucas Arts Literary Fellowship, the Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship, and two NYFA Poetry Fellowships, and he is a former recipient of the Woolrich Fellowship in Creative Writing at Columbia University.
A core faculty member at VONA/Voices of our Nation Writing Workshop, Perdomo currently lives in New Hampshire and teaches at Phillips Exeter Academy.
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More Willie Perdomo
Video: Watch Perdomo read his poem "Arroz con Son y Clave" for Library of American
Text: Read poems by Perdomo at the Academy of American Poets
Audio: Perdomo revisits his old Spanish Harlem neighborhood with Latino USA
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Photo by Jake McAfee.