Perdomo Shares The Crazy Bunch with Academy
“You remember, that was the summer of Up Rock, quarter water, speed knots, pillow bags, two-for-five, Jesus pieces and Bambú. The Willie Bobo was turned up to ten, and some would’ve said that a science was dropped on our summer …”
English Instructor and acclaimed poet Willie Perdomo began a reading with the opening lines of his latest poetry collection, The Crazy Bunch, transporting an enraptured audience to his hometown of East Harlem Tuesday in the Library Commons.
An ode to his upbringing in the lively New York neighborhood, the poetry collection chronicles one transformative weekend in the lives of several young teenagers. “Perdomo returns to his beloved neighborhood to create a vivid, kaleidoscopic portrait of a ‘crew’ coming of age,” promotional materials read. “In poems written in couplets, vignettes, sketches, riffs and dialogue, Perdomo recreates … a series of tragic events: ‘That was the summer we all tried to fly. All but one of us succeeded.’”
Of Perdomo’s five published works, this is the first he has dedicated entirely to his childhood friends. “I wanted to honor hip-hop music. I wanted to honor my favorite movie, Cooley High … And I wanted to honor the kids that I grew up with in East Harlem,” Perdomo said. “It took some time for me to do it. Sometimes, you’re driven to tell a story that you’ve been waiting to tell. You just needed a little bit of time, a little bit of distance, a different vantage point.”
To build authenticity, Perdomo utilized context-specific imagery. “If you teach in the English Department, that’s what we teach–we teach specificity,” he said. “Every time I worked on the book, it felt as if I was hanging out up town with my childhood friends and reliving some of those pivotal and transformative moments in our young lives.”
English Instructor Mercy Carbonell, who delivered opening remarks at the reading, noted that East Harlem was never far from Perdomo’s heart. “‘I think that, in order to embrace dislocation, one must dream.’ Willie told me [that] over the phone,” Carbonell recalled. “For Willie, the landscape of East Harlem was right around the corner. As it always is.”
While the collection is centered around his upbringing, Perdomo noted that The Crazy Bunch was not generalizing any community at-large. “I want to be clear that this is just a specific moment. This does not [emblematize] the lives of young black and Puerto Rican males who lived in the country … at that time,” he said. “It does speak for the dynamic that was prevalent at that time. It was a violent, violent time, but I want to be clear that it is a zoom-in look at the lives of these young brothers–not a whole population, not a whole race, not a whole ethnicity.”
The reading attracted much interest. The Gender-Sexuality Alliance (GSA) encouraged its members to attend during its regular meeting time. “Mr. Perdomo is a part of our [school] community, and we want to be supportive of him. Identities intersect with one another; the representation that he provides is important representation,” GSA co-head Elliot Diaz said, noting that Perdomo’s reading, though not explicitly related to gender or sexuality, was an important voice for club members to hear.
Perdomo’s reading also drew several attendees from in-town, who shared high praise for the author. “He opened up a world to me that is not my world, but which I can connect to because we have all been adolescents trying to find a way to grow up in the world,” Exeter resident Nancy Rockwell said. “It’s always a challenge, but, in his world, it’s perilous and dangerous and different than mine.”
Senior Linus Manchester shared Rockwell’s sentiments. “He has a distinct rhythmic style, combined with creative word choice and vivid subject matter,” Manchester said, explaining how these devices brought Perdomo’s work to life. “For him, it is real. It’s a compilation of real experiences.”
Perdomo’s colleagues shared similar praise for Perdomo’s work. “[The reading] made me feel proud to be a member of the English Department,” English Instructor Sarah Ream said. “I think it’s the mark of a really fine writer to be able to provide us with that experience, even if we haven’t experienced it ourselves.”
Sandra Guzman, Perdomo’s spouse, expressed her appreciation that many students were in attendance at the reading. “At the center of the story are teenagers—[students are] going to immediately understand this world. You don’t know these people, but you really feel,” she said. “It was special for him to share this with the young minds in the room.”