Speaker 1: Hey, dear listener, I'm Desi Contreras. As an editor at
Speaker 1: Latino USA, part of my job is to help producers
Speaker 1: shape their stories. Together, we get to figure out the
Speaker 1: right story structure and focus. One of my favorite things
Speaker 1: is witnessing how those story ideas turn into the beautiful
Speaker 1: episodes that you hear week after week. I'm so excited
Speaker 1: to see Latino USA turn thirty and that you, dear listener,
Speaker 1: get to join us for this celebration. Happy thirtieth anniversary,
Speaker 1: Latino USA.
Speaker 2: I'm Susanne Russ, the curator for the moth. I'd like
Speaker 2: to reach our friends at Latino USA and Maria in
Speaker 2: Ajosa a happy thirtieth anniversary. Thank you for fiercely telling
Speaker 2: the stories of overlook communities and celebrating our diversity and
Speaker 2: our power. Keep up the amazing work.
Speaker 3: This is Latino USA, the radio journal of News and
Speaker 3: Kurturre Latino USA. Le Latino USA, I'm Maria Inojosa.
Speaker 4: We bring you story that are underreported but that mattered
Speaker 4: to you, overlooked by the rest of the media, and
Speaker 4: while the country is struggling to deal with these we.
Speaker 3: Listen to the stories of black and Latino.
Speaker 4: Studios United Latino Front, a cultural renaissance organizing at the
Speaker 4: forefront of the movement.
Speaker 3: I'm Maria Inojosa La Latino Usa. Listener Alizba a show
Speaker 3: from Los Archibos.
Speaker 5: It's attention, you know, it's attention of kind of being
Speaker 5: a native son and coming back and feeling like a stranger,
Speaker 5: but yet feeling like this is still your you know,
Speaker 5: your bodyo, this is still your your neighborhood.
Speaker 3: From Uturo Media and PRX, It's Latino Usa. I'm Maria Nojosa. Today,
Speaker 3: Poet Willie Perdomo comes home for today's episode. I'm going
Speaker 3: to hand it over to producer Antonia City Huizel, Who's
Speaker 3: gonna take it from here? Here's Antonia.
Speaker 6: In the late nineteen eighties and early nineteen nineties, New
Speaker 6: York City was undergoing a moment of intense change. It
Speaker 6: was the golden age of hip.
Speaker 7: Hopes the world is Yours.
Speaker 6: But it was also a time in which communities of
Speaker 6: black and brown New Yorkers were seeing the effects of
Speaker 6: both the crack epidemic and the decades long War on drugs.
Speaker 6: Steve Young reports on a new kind of cocaine called crack.
Speaker 7: Last year, we had over two thousand homicides here in
Speaker 7: New York City. That's an average of five or six homicides.
Speaker 6: Okay, this is the East Harlem that Willie Pedlomo tries
Speaker 6: to wrangle with in his newest book of poetry, The
Speaker 6: Crazy Bunch. Since the nineteen nineties, Willie has been known
Speaker 6: as a poet, former, and writer with a special interest
Speaker 6: in the sounds and sights of the city he grew
Speaker 6: up in.
Speaker 5: And it's going to be like two church boys talking
Speaker 5: loud on the train, praising the Lord in a spanglish
Speaker 5: hip hop speak.
Speaker 7: Better guess on.
Speaker 6: That's WILLI on Deaf Poetry Jam back in two thousand
Speaker 6: and one. His most recent book focuses on a weekend
Speaker 6: in the lives of a group of young men growing
Speaker 6: up in Harlem, some of them based on characters from
Speaker 6: Willy's own adolescence.
Speaker 7: Basically, this is all my neighborhood.
Speaker 5: But most of really, most of the book takes place
Speaker 5: in you know what do we are?
Speaker 7: One twenty?
Speaker 5: Yeah, we're right around you know where everything happens, basically
Speaker 5: where I grew up.
Speaker 6: Along with producer say okay Vi though, Willie and I
Speaker 6: decided to take a walk through his old neighborhood to
Speaker 6: hear some of his work from his newest book and
Speaker 6: reflect on his teenage years growing up in Harlem, even
Speaker 6: the not so memorable spots. Does this block have a particular.
Speaker 5: Significant But not really. I mean all these neighborhoods look
Speaker 5: different to me. Like this building right here is just
Speaker 5: you know, I would have never imagined a building like
Speaker 5: that would just go up, and this thing look like
Speaker 5: right now, it looks like a stencil.
Speaker 6: Since the nineties, many people have left the neighborhood because
Speaker 6: of rapidly rising rents. Willie himself moved out to New
Speaker 6: Hampshire in twenty thirteen, and over the last several years,
Speaker 6: East Harlem has seen, like many parts of New York,
Speaker 6: an influx of developers, as evidenced by the shining new
Speaker 6: condo we're standing in front of.
Speaker 7: It's way out of place.
Speaker 5: It seems like an an namely alvoice, you know, But
Speaker 5: it seems like it's trying too hard too, you know.
Speaker 5: So so we're going this way.
Speaker 7: So this is where I grew up on fifteen East
Speaker 7: one twenty second Street. The whole world really existed.
Speaker 5: On this street. This is where I learned how to
Speaker 5: play cards. This is where I saw my first gun.
Speaker 5: This was everything. This is where I started thinking about
Speaker 5: becoming a poet. And this is where I wrote some
Speaker 5: of where Nickel kassa. Di'm on my good old fashioned
Speaker 5: Olympia electric typewriter that I was my only Christmas gift
Speaker 5: for nineteen eighty five. And you can hear me at
Speaker 5: like two or three o'clock in the morning or you
Speaker 5: hear like like like I thing like like that's all
Speaker 5: you hear.
Speaker 7: That's all you hear. You know.
Speaker 5: So in the back we played stickball and then this
Speaker 5: building came up and it had a nice basketball court.
Speaker 5: They called this nineteen ninety. Now they call it the Smiley.
Speaker 5: I think they call it like it has a whole new, fancy,
Speaker 5: gentrified name. Now the Smiley's.
Speaker 7: Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: So now eventually, what happens in the young brother's life,
Speaker 5: really you grew up here, if you know, if that's
Speaker 5: your trajectory, we're not gonna say for all young brothers,
Speaker 5: is that basically you make your way from the stoop
Speaker 5: and you make your way to the corner, and in
Speaker 5: the corner is where you start letting all your lessons
Speaker 5: you know about man, I'm not sure, if it's the
Speaker 5: same now, But it was like that back then.
Speaker 7: You know, we can go left here and then come
Speaker 7: back up.
Speaker 6: And this is the corner.
Speaker 5: No, I'll tell you the corner we're about to walk
Speaker 5: up in the corn This is one of the hottest corners.
Speaker 5: In fact, you know that Lou Reed song where he
Speaker 5: says when he's going looking for the man, this is
Speaker 5: where he is up one hund twenty thirty.
Speaker 7: Electus is around there looking for his man, for his connect.
Speaker 6: Maating for my man.
Speaker 7: So this is where everything was everything. There was a
Speaker 7: Cuban man named Julio who had a video.
Speaker 5: Game shop in this little store coming up here, but
Speaker 5: you know this would be filled with people who just
Speaker 5: lived in the neighborhood and kids and all that. You know,
Speaker 5: there was there was commerce, there was traffic, there was music,
Speaker 5: there were babies being born, and it seemed like such
Speaker 5: an electric place, so electric that I could see it
Speaker 5: coming out the train station on the summer night.
Speaker 7: I could see this block shimmering. Basically, That's what the
Speaker 7: way it felt like. But maybe because I was so
Speaker 7: excited to come back. You know why is that?
Speaker 5: Well, because the closest thing you knew to family was here.
Speaker 6: The Crazy Bunch is the story of one tragic and
Speaker 6: life changing summer weekend, told through the eyes of a
Speaker 6: crew of friends, and it's modeled off of the memories
Speaker 6: and stories will he grew up with. His work is
Speaker 6: reflective of Harlem culture and the figures and places that
Speaker 6: made it what it is, an attempt in some ways
Speaker 6: to preserve a place and time that no longer exists.
Speaker 6: I read that you said that even though the buildings
Speaker 6: are the same when you come here, the faces are
Speaker 6: completely different, completely.
Speaker 7: Yeah. I mean there's something ghostly to that, right, right,
Speaker 7: You're used.
Speaker 5: To seeing certain folks on certain corners, or sitting on
Speaker 5: a stoop, or being in front of a store in
Speaker 5: the store walking down the avenue, and those kind of
Speaker 5: moments now are few and far between. But it's attention,
Speaker 5: you know, it's attention of kind of being a native
Speaker 5: son and coming back and feeling like a stranger m hm,
Speaker 5: but yet feeling like this is still your you know,
Speaker 5: your body, or this is still your your neighborhood, this
Speaker 5: is still your your blocking And if someone were to
Speaker 5: to doubt that you would have enough stories to tell them.
Speaker 1: Actually, can we read the first.
Speaker 5: Poem yeah, So this is the It's called in the
Speaker 5: face of what you remember, And the title was taken
Speaker 5: from a from a Lanxon Hughes poem and the first
Speaker 5: stanza in the poem was the first that came to
Speaker 5: me when the book started. You remember, that was the
Speaker 5: summer of up rock, quarter water speed, notch, pillow bags
Speaker 5: two for five, Jesus pieces in bamboo, the Willie Bobo
Speaker 5: was turned up to ten, and some would have said
Speaker 5: that the science was dropped on our summer, the summer
Speaker 5: that was lit with whispers of wild style rock steady
Speaker 5: battles and white party plates made all kinds of moons
Speaker 5: on the playground phone. The some of the burner was
Speaker 5: used to eat in mandate inspired Sunday sermons became a
Speaker 5: literary influence, with humming climaxes, a bribeable tale, a dove
Speaker 5: tied to a string, and squashing beef wasn't an option
Speaker 5: to summer fresh shrills in a future somerssaulting off a
Speaker 5: monkey bar a future placing bets that all us old
Speaker 5: heads desperate to find a new cool could not flip pure.
Speaker 5: That was the summer that our grills dropped to below freezing.
Speaker 5: Back then, Baaloviyejo was thermal and therapy. Bones were smoked
Speaker 5: in the cut, and you had to expect jungle gym
Speaker 5: giggle to be accompanied by a puck shot. That was
Speaker 5: the summer Charlie Chase hijacked Mega Watch from Roses Kitchenette
Speaker 5: found gems in a milk crate spent as one in
Speaker 5: twos below rims that still vibrated with undocumented double dunks.
Speaker 5: The same summer we became pundits and philosophers, poets and
Speaker 5: pushers that we all tried to fly.
Speaker 7: But only one of us succeeded to some of that.
Speaker 5: Babu turned up to extra status, the only one in
Speaker 5: the crew who had reduced Fame's window by a fifth.
Speaker 5: When the camera panned his kazal laced up rock the
Speaker 5: rocky scene of Beech Street, one could say we gave
Speaker 5: the black gasp and gossip body and bag of folk
Speaker 5: tale worth its morphology. That was the season we had
Speaker 5: reason to rock capes and wings, chains and rings. Some
Speaker 5: of us flew high than most, and tricks will hardly
Speaker 5: ever pull from a hat. All that and a bag
Speaker 5: of barbecue bon times was enough for at least one
Speaker 5: of us to say I'm straight.
Speaker 6: Did you always know that you were going to be
Speaker 6: the storyteller of your group of friends?
Speaker 5: No, I think that happened as a result of first listening,
Speaker 5: you know, and it's just kind of being an observer
Speaker 5: and then trying to relay what I had just seen
Speaker 5: to on paper, you know.
Speaker 7: I think the.
Speaker 5: Storytelling really came from my mother and just kind of
Speaker 5: in the living room, and she loved telling stories about
Speaker 5: things she saw seeing on TV, the old days at
Speaker 5: the palladium, hanging out to the break it dawn and
Speaker 5: then even after.
Speaker 7: So she was always full of stories. But I think,
Speaker 7: you know, I grew up.
Speaker 5: Around some really great storytellers, I think, and the storytelling
Speaker 5: process was a part of their bodies, you know.
Speaker 7: So people were always talking.
Speaker 5: That's why I like to walk and talk, you know,
Speaker 5: and so that that was part of it. I think
Speaker 5: storytelling kind of also gave me a way to access
Speaker 5: my imagination and a place was that was sometimes a
Speaker 5: little bit too real, you know, in a way that
Speaker 5: I could not process.
Speaker 7: Well.
Speaker 6: One thing's interesting about this poem is is I get
Speaker 6: the sentence that sort of the different people in your
Speaker 6: in your crew kind of like played roles and I'm wondering, like,
Speaker 6: even when this happened to the setting of of I mean,
Speaker 6: what year would you say this book this book?
Speaker 7: It would me like in the nineties for sure.
Speaker 5: And something that really needs to be emphasized is that
Speaker 5: the book is kind of a work of fiction for
Speaker 5: anything else, you know, And while it's based on some
Speaker 5: images and h and the language and the vernacular of
Speaker 5: its time, you know that that should be.
Speaker 7: Emphasized, I think. But the idea of.
Speaker 5: Living in a tribe, and in this particular instance, the
Speaker 5: tribe was for the most part, a male tribe, and
Speaker 5: so what I started noticing is that everyone had a strength.
Speaker 7: There was kids could run fast, there were kids who
Speaker 7: were like Romeos, Romeos to the max. There were kids
Speaker 7: who could fight.
Speaker 5: And it's weird to find yourself in that kind of
Speaker 5: dynamic and not have a single strength that you can
Speaker 5: point to, you know, except that you were like a
Speaker 5: bookish kid, right so that you were, by the fault,
Speaker 5: considered the smart kid. You know, Well, that's definitely a strength,
Speaker 5: I think so, but it wasn't considered one in that domain,
Speaker 5: you know. So when I became a poet, the beautiful
Speaker 5: thing about becoming a poet.
Speaker 7: Is that I wasn't shamed.
Speaker 5: As a result of being a poet, you know, and
Speaker 5: so everyone that I was hanging out with at the
Speaker 5: time really celebrated the fact that I was a poet.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 5: That's the kind of role that started to develop, you know,
Speaker 5: and also being in that space where you're seeing things
Speaker 5: that someone else.
Speaker 7: Might not be seen.
Speaker 6: Right when you ask that question, do you have an
Speaker 6: example that comes to your mind?
Speaker 5: So there's one time and the image comes up and
Speaker 5: I was standing on a corner and this man walks
Speaker 5: into le Bo that with a cactus on his head,
Speaker 5: you know, and I'm standing on the corner. I look
Speaker 5: and he just kind of scurries right into it, and
Speaker 5: I'm like, this is kind of an odd image.
Speaker 6: Willie's poetry is thick with vivid imagery and confronts some
Speaker 6: of the harder aspects of growing up in East Harlem
Speaker 6: in the early nineteen nineties, including the violence he witnessed
Speaker 6: growing up. In a poem from his book called How
Speaker 6: It Went Down, Willy alludes to a shooting from his
Speaker 6: teenage years.
Speaker 7: This is how it went Down.
Speaker 5: A man walks into Kadaffi's with a cactus on his head.
Speaker 5: This sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it's not.
Speaker 5: We called them Kadaffi, but his name was Domingo. We
Speaker 5: called him Kadaffi because he looked like Kadaffi. The cactus
Speaker 5: wanted three for ten. When you take shorts, you can
Speaker 5: only take as much as been took.
Speaker 7: But when you're taken, then you need.
Speaker 5: To start thinking about what they call in theirs and
Speaker 5: what you're calling yours. The car that suddenly pulls up
Speaker 5: is more delivery than package, more end stopped than ellipsis.
Speaker 5: The dreads sit there and perch there and chill there,
Speaker 5: and lamp there and chill there and rest there, still
Speaker 5: there word They don't move next to let the dreads
Speaker 5: know that nothing was happening, even though he just opened up.
Speaker 5: Pete says, I heard those cactuses never die. They say
Speaker 5: that getting shot is a scene study where all your
Speaker 5: reward circuits go blank. You only remember the blast, the
Speaker 5: smoke after the blast, the nano second after the smoke,
Speaker 5: and then you remember the cactus, untouched, sitting on a
Speaker 5: stoop still.
Speaker 6: This is a book that deals with death and with trauma.
Speaker 6: Why write about these particular instances of violence and trauma.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because there were a signature I think in my
Speaker 5: own coming of age. I think I've always wondered what
Speaker 5: the effect of seeing that kind of violence had on
Speaker 5: my generation now that we're all turning fifty, you know,
Speaker 5: and how is that showing up and our approach to living.
Speaker 5: You know, there are a generation of black and Puerto
Speaker 5: Rican men who are the age of fifty and over
Speaker 5: who are probably suffering from some sort of post trauma
Speaker 5: based on all the ravages of the drug war.
Speaker 6: You know, when you say post trauma, stress or how
Speaker 6: did that manifest for you?
Speaker 5: I think some of it was that, you know, it
Speaker 5: manifested it as a part of my silences. I think
Speaker 5: it manifested and my need to dream a little bit more,
Speaker 5: my need to escape a little bit more. It manifested
Speaker 5: clearly as a younger person. There's a level of self
Speaker 5: destructive behavior that's not the most healthiest. It could be
Speaker 5: anything from eating a big map to drinking too much run.
Speaker 7: It shows up in your body.
Speaker 5: It shows up in your sugar, It shows up in
Speaker 5: your cholesterol. It shows up in the way you perceive things.
Speaker 5: It shows up in the way you have arguments with folks,
Speaker 5: it shows up on the way you might get angry
Speaker 5: for no reason. So I think the manifestation is a
Speaker 5: multitude of the way you know and how it shows up.
Speaker 5: And sometimes, if you're lucky, you can kind of use
Speaker 5: your art to think about it. So the conflicts that
Speaker 5: maybe you could not play out in your existent life
Speaker 5: are conflicts that you might be able to play in your.
Speaker 6: Creative Willie continues to write about Harlem and visits when
Speaker 6: he can. He's the recipient of a pen meond the
Speaker 6: Margins Award, and the author of several books of poetry,
Speaker 6: including his most recent, The Crazy Bunch.
Speaker 3: This episode was produced by Sayer Givedo and edited by
Speaker 3: Sophie Palissa Ka. It was mixed by Stephanie Lebau. The
Speaker 3: Latino USA team includes Andrea Lopezko Russado, Marta Martinez, Mike Sargent,
Speaker 3: Daisy Contreres, Victoria Strada, Regnardo Leanos Junior, Patrisa Sulvan, and
Speaker 3: Elizabeth Lental Torres.
Speaker 4: Our editorial directory.
Speaker 3: Is Fernanda Santos.
Speaker 4: Our senior engineer is Julia Caruso. Our associate engineers our
Speaker 4: gabriel Le Biez and jj Carubin. Our marketing manager is
Speaker 4: Luis Luna. Our theme music was composed by Zane Rubinos.
Speaker 4: I'm your host and executive producer Marieno Rosa. Join us
Speaker 4: again on our next episode. In the meantime, look for
Speaker 4: us on social media. Remember Montevayas and we'll see you
Speaker 4: on the next one.
Speaker 7: Ciao.
Speaker 8: Latino USA is made possible in part by California Endowment,
Speaker 8: building a strong state by improving the health of all Californians.
Speaker 8: The Anni E. Casey Foundation creates a brighter future for
Speaker 8: the nation's children by strengthening families, building greater economic opportunity,
Speaker 8: and transforming communities, and the Ford Foundation working with visionaries
Speaker 8: on the front lines of social change worldwide.
Speaker 6: Hello, docness, my old friend, I've come to talk to you.
Speaker 6: Bargain BBD BDDD