For October’s Hoot reading we are thrilled to welcome two poets from the Puerto Rican Community. Susan Justiniano or RescuePoetix and Willie Perdomo.
Susan Justiniano, the first Puerto Rican woman Poet Laureate of Jersey City, NJ (2020-2022) and State of New Jersey Beat Poet Laureate (2022-2024), is a bilingual globally published performing poet, advocate, spoken word artist, recording artist and teaching artist. She established her professional artist brand, RescuePoetix™ and is an arts advocate deeply involved in the arts community since 2006 and currently serves on the boards of several arts organizations throughout the USA. http://www.rescuepoetix.com/
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. https://willieperdomo.com/