Willie is a friend. He’s also a teacher, though we’re right around the same age. He’s from New York. I’m from Jersey. Different. Real different. In a lot of ways. But it means so much to me that a Puerto Rican writing about a conga player has made it as finalist to the NBCC Award. Because of friendship, yes. I want my friends to shine. But his poems made space for mine. Still, for a lot of white (and maybe even for some non-white) critics and publishers and reading series, seeing somebody brown or black lock in a spot at a major award like the NBCC isn’t a big deal. But even though there are more POC writing, there’s still a lot of isolation. There is still a ton of self-doubt. There is the simultaneous work of writing your books AND being an advocate for your books where there is little to no advocacy. And then, if you’re someone like Willie, there’s the work of mentoring peers and students and young writers – something he’s been dedicated to for a long time. Me and Willie are very different – as people and poets. But there persists a shared memory—Puerto Rico and the Philippines—and a shared set of images, vocabulary, linguistic musics, and strategies embedded deep in what we do. And those things correspond. The old drums still talk to one another. They still translate. They can still move a crowd.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/the-best-in-poetry-national-book-critics-circle-award-finalists/2015/03/10/6b81f06a-c2b9-11e4-ad5c-3b8ce89f1b89_story.html
Live, from my house!, Broadcast of Willie Perdomo and Malik Abduh Poetry Reading →
When I moved to Philly, I was happy to have a space that lends itself to sharing. So I thought I’d hold occasional gatherings of writers, musicians, and artists.
Ayat, simply, means love in Ilocano, the language of my parents – though I’m told that in Arabic it can refer to the verses of the Qur'an or it can mean a sign of love or gratitude. I’m hoping to make a space where people can share what they love. Ayat events are mostly informal and completely irregularly scheduled.
As a way of making a first blessing, Willie Perdomo and Malik Abduh will be reading poems. Friday, June 13, approximately 6:45pm EDT.
Malik Abduh received his MFA in Creative Writing from Rutgers-Camden in 2011. He was the recipient of the 2008 Rutgers University Alumni Association award for Creative Writing. He lived abroad for many years in Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other countries. He is fluent in classical Arabic and works as a translator/interpreter. His interests are the Bedouin verse of early Arab poets and the Imagist movement of the early 20th century.
Willie Perdomo is the author of The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon (Penguin Poets, 2014), Smoking Lovely (Rattapallax, 2003), winner of the PEN Beyond Margins Award, and Where a Nickel Costs a Dime (W.W. Norton, 1996), a finalist for the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, BOMB, Mandorla, and African Voices. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee, a former recipient of the Woolrich Fellowship in Creative Writing at Columbia University, and a two-time New York Foundation for the Arts Poetry Fellow. He is founder/publisher of Cypher Books, a VONA/Voices faculty member, and is currently an Instructor in English at Phillips Exeter Academy.