Willie Perdomo

EVENTS

BOOKS

CONTACT

“This immersive poetry collection proceeds like a mixtape or a gnostic gospel . . . Oracular, intoxicating . . . Perdomo’s vibrant diction refashions the high lyric, drawing on local cant to render the intimacy of home, friendship, and shared loss. Part rhapsody, part elegy, the book memorializes neighborhood legends, and, even as it impishly indulges nostalgic romance, it never forgets, or forgives, the violence that threatens these young lives.”

The New Yorker

“Set during one weekend in the early 1990s, Perdomo’s fourth book celebrates a crew of hip-hop-loving friends in East Harlem with his customary heart and bravura language.”

The New York Times Book Review

BIO

WILLIE PERDOMO

WILLIE PERDOMO is the author of 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 of Dime (Norton, 1996). Winner of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Cy Twombly Award for Poetry, the New York City Book Award in Poetry, and the PEN Open Book Award, Perdomo was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Poetry Society of America Norma Farber First Book Award. He is co-editor of the anthology, Latínext, and his work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Poetry, Washington Post, The Best American Poetry 2019, and African Voices. He is currently a Lucas Arts Literary Fellow, a core faculty member at VONA/Voices of our Nation Writing Workshop, and teaches at Phillips Exeter Academy.