Puma Perl: A Journey Through Art, Poetry, and Rock 'n' Roll
- John Wisniewski
- Mar 27
- 9 min read
Updated: Apr 1
From Brooklyn Roots to NYC Artist: The Evolution of Puma Perl
Puma Perl is a multifaceted artist whose journey from Brooklyn to becoming a prominent figure in New York City's vibrant arts scene is a testament to her resilience and creative spirit. With a background marked by both personal challenges and artistic exploration, Perl has carved out a unique niche by merging poetry with rock and roll, captivating audiences with her distinctive voice and unflinching performances. Her work, which spans poetry collections, music albums, and live performances, reflects her deep connection to the city and its cultural landscape, while her collaborations with musicians like Joff Wilson and Joe Sztabnik have further enriched her artistic expression. Through her art, Perl continues to inspire and connect with communities, embodying the essence of New York City's enduring creative pulse. Journalist John Wisniewski met with Perl to discuss
1. When did your life in art begin, Puma?
If being an outcast is an art, perhaps it began at birth. I was always different, and I didn’t know why I was different, only that it was not a good thing to be in my Gravesend/Bensonhurst Brooklyn neighborhood or even within my own family. I tried and failed to fit in. I didn’t look the same, I didn’t think the same or have the same values, I wasn’t a racist, I liked to read, and I hated school. I’d hide library books under my coat in case I ran into anyone on my way there. I shared some interests with my peers. Like other girls my age, I fell in love with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and listened to the popular radio stations. But I also fell in love with jazz when I was twelve and accidentally landed on WEVD on a Monday night. Symphony Sid playing Billie Holiday’s “Willow Weep for Me” on my little blue transistor radio. Something I’d never heard! I liked things I’d never heard or seen before which was considered suspicious behavior. In my environment you thought “who the hell you were” if you wanted to explore “New York;” always “New York,” not the city, not Manhattan, not up or downtown. Things were no better at home. My mother made it clear that art was for other people and that I “wasn’t creative” anyway. The first decades of my life were filled with discouragement and self-doubt. But also, in some way, some of the time, filled with art, even if it was mostly in my head. It wasn’t until much later when I studied “The Artist’s Way” with Julia Cameron that I gave myself permission to be an artist.
2. Any favorite artists and authors/poets?
So many. I developed an affinity to the Beat Generation artists and poets early on. I used to slip away after school or on the weekends and ride the F train to West Fourth Street. It wasn’t unusual for a junior high school girl to ride the subway by herself. I wasn’t any more dangerous than walking the streets of my own neighborhood or the hallways in schools. One of my favorite haunts was the 8th Street Bookshop and my first purchase was Ferlinghetti’s “Coney Island of the Mind.” I thought it would be about Coney Island, and I liked the cover. It proved to be a gateway to the other Beat poets, my favorite of which is still Diane DiPrima. She was an Italian girl from Brooklyn who escaped, and her poems were accessible and rebellious. I also fell in love with her sort of soft porn “Memoirs of a Beatnik,” which she said she wrote for the money, but it was still great. Jazz was a part of this beat world, and I was too young for the clubs, but not too young to buy records, the first of which was Stan Getz’ “Blue,” which, like the Ferlinghetti book, I purchased because I liked the cover. The most influential jazz album was Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme,” which brought a spiritual message of rising from the ashes. On my secret trips, I would wander through Washington Square Park, where I discovered folk music and protest music, but the real revelation was Dylan going electric. “Like a Rolling Stone” was a pivotal moment, riding in a car I wasn’t supposed to be in and blasting the radio when that song came on and blew everyone away. I can still feel that freedom and pinpoint the moment I first heard it.
Some favorites over the last several decades are John Cooper Clarke, who conducts a master class every time he approaches the stage, the late John Sinclair, who taught me how to stand back and rejoin the band – well, I should amend that. I had a crush on Sinclair when I was maybe 17 and followed him about the East Village, but it was in more recent decades that he inspired me as an artist. One of my favorite living artists is Kim Addonizio, who does it all – poetry, prose, short stories, novels, workshop facilitation, and she also plays a mean blues harp. I’ve learned from her how to link the genres in ways that respect and expand the characters and the principles.
“Escape from Gravesend,” published in my 2019 book “Birthdays Before and After” illustrates much of what I’ve said.
Bukowski, DiPrima, Ferlinghetti, Coltrane
Unlike my real life loves, you never let me down
In return, I’ve not been fickle or unfaithful
Our relationships are perfect, free of expectations and demands
You don’t give me money or remember my name but you’re
forever present, dead or alive, always prepared to comfort,
inspire, engage or enrage, to demand a revolution of the soul.
Even if I recall nothing else when they yank the white sheet
over my head, I’ll be listening to A Love Supreme, reading
a revolutionary letter, keeping Coney Island on my mind,
Bukowski’s bluebird soul fluttering, because you get so alone
No matter if friends bear witness or have stories to tell,
I keep my first loves, that turquoise blue radio alongside
my bed suddenly giving a 12-year-old me the gift of Billie
singing Willow Weep for Me as I restlessly twist the dial,
emptiness fueling insomnia will grow into a beautiful void
someday filled with jazz and poetry books purchased
because of the Ferlinghetti cover or that Stan Getz blue,
missed those days of records and bookstores and solitary
subway rides to West 4th Street, adventure, illumination,
joining 2AM lost souls passing my room above the F train,
humming trains promising places to go when finally
I get the fuck out of Gravesend with its good pizza,
cages of MacDonald Avenue chickens awaiting slaughter,
a street smelling of blood, death, car wrecks, and maybe
a little bit of hope, trickling down from the elevated tracks.
3. What inspires you to create?
Nothing and everything. I write a poem every day. Sometimes that leads to another poem or idea, sometimes not. If I waited for inspiration, I might never do anything. I used to get struck by lightning more often, and I would have to stop and scribble down poem thought fragments which I would usually be unable to decipher when I got home. It’s not as dramatic now. I might hear a snatch of conversation or a piece of a song that triggers an urge to write. If not, I just write anyway. I used to photograph the sunrise every morning, but some buildings went up that blocked my view so now I just write about the sunrise and the loathsome buildings. Interacting with good friends who are on similar pages in the way of life inspires new projects and spurts of creative energy.
4. Tell us about The Puma Perl Band. How did you get together with Joff and Joe?
Yes. The Puma Perl Band is Joff Wilson on guitar, Joe Sztabnik on bass, and Dave Donen on percussion. It unfolded organically, at first, over the last 13 years or so. I was experienced on the poetry circuit nationwide and had jammed with many musicians informally. I began to envision merging poetry with rock and roll in new ways. Eventually, musicians started asking me to come up and do a poem with them or between sets and I was able to pull something out of those files in my brain and occasionally invent something on the spot. It felt great that so many people told me that they thought they disliked poetry until they heard me. To me, if you like lyrics, you really do like poetry, but many of us get stuck in the way the school system pushed it down our throats by forcing us to memorize poems about death like “In Flanders Field” and “Death Be Not Proud.” Shortly after Hurricane Sandy, in 2012, I participated in a benefit at the Bowery Electric and Joff Wilson was putting together a set to fill a sudden vacant slot and he asked me to come up and do a couple of poems with the band. The chemistry was good, and we decided to keep on and see what developed. At first, it was usually Joff, me and violinist Walter Steding or saxophonist Danny Ray. We added a rotating group of musicians, and I called it “Puma Perl and Friends.” We never rehearsed and never did the same song the same way twice. It was a bit of an inspired madhouse with unexpectedly beautiful and magical moments. Angello Olivieri played bass with us until he became unwell, and Joe Sztabnik took his place shortly after Dave Donen began regularly drumming. Before the pandemic, we had begun to get tighter with more structure and even incorporated set lists and rehearsals; we were doing great until we were so rudely interrupted. Post-pandemic, I changed the name to The Puma Perl Band because at that point it defined us more accurately than Puma Perl and Friends did. We still often wing it when I pull out a poem they’ve never heard before and it’s slightly less of a madhouse but it’s just as magical and inspired.
5. Any new projects and events you could tell us about?
The most exciting recent project is the album I recently released with Joe Sztabnik, my words and vocals with Joe’s original music and production. “Under Tenement Skies” is available in vinyl, CD and digital downloads and reflects the hard work we did together and separately during the pandemic. Dave Donen also plays on the three of the tracks. As the album progresses, we travel through gentrification, the pandemic, and end on a note of hope, a commitment to keep living the life. It’s available on Bandcamp.
As a band, we continue to play in the East Village and other parts of the city and state. We will be back at the 11th Street Bar on May 13. I also do many solo readings and duos with Joe, as well as other configurations of the band and continue my writing and my journalism. A recent publication is “Art in the Aftermath,” interviews with artists about the ways in which the pandemic affected them, published by Chelsea Community News.
In the upcoming months I’ll be doing poetry with jazz at a new spot in Brooklyn, Café Ornithology, and we will have a listening party for the album on April 27th on Zoom.
6. How does New York City inspire you?
Living so many years in New York City produces, for me, a complicated relationship. I sometimes hate it but when I leave, I can’t wait to come back, even in hard times. Many poems and stories I write are in some ways love letters to New York City, except when they’re break-up letters. The album, “Under Tenement Skies,” is NYC beginning to end, from the 70’s to the present. For better or worse, I’m going out of here feet first.
7. What has kept you going for so many years with many endeavors, such as writing, music, music videos and photography?
Just like the child I described in my first answer, I like something new, something I haven’t heard, something I haven’t done. That’s what has enabled me to work with so many different musicians and poets and writers and to produce so many venues that showcased others. Something I have not mastered is playing a musical instrument. As a child, I didn’t have the opportunity although I always wanted to play either piano or guitar, and now I have a keyboard sitting right next to my computer. I’m looking at it as I write this, but I haven’t touched it for a while. Maybe writing about it will inspire me to try again. To sum it up, survival keeps me going because as long as I’m here anyway, I might as well do something about it.
Puma Perl's enduring artistic career is fueled by her insatiable curiosity and desire for new experiences. From her early days as a Brooklyn outsider to her current status as a respected NYC artist, Perl's journey exemplifies the transformative power of art and the resilience of the creative spirit
For more information:
Links:
and band page https://www.instagram.com/pumaperlandfriendsband/