“Where I’m From” by Willie Perdomo is a beautiful personal poem that expresses both the highs and lows of one’s neighborhood. Instead of showing pride throughout the poem, the author uses a rather special way to show his feelings toward 110th Street and Lexington Ave. At first, it starts off with a fresh breeze coming through the windows but immediately turns bitter when he mentions a barking German shepherd and screams of a woman being abused by her husband. The tone throughout the poem is as if everything that seems horrifying compared to the norm is actually quite ordinary where he lives. Perdomo skillfully describes the outrageous events of police invading homes to heartlessly kill innocent families for the heck of it and a little boy spitting out a razor but having to get a number to wait extremely long hours as if it wasn’t even an emergency. The detailed descriptions of these events stir a certain feeling of anger and disgust. However, the author turns the whole poem around with a hint of sweetness and expresses the small moments of happiness such as his niece stopping in the middle of the street to tell to notice the stars in the sky. It just may be that Willie Perdomo is showing us that what he loves about where he’s from is the beauty hidden within all the ugly.