Underground Poet

"A-Train prophet takes book to the people." by Ray Sanchez

"And before you know it here comes another baby and another baby and another baby And now we are like the ghetto version of the Bradys with a bunch of babies and baby daddy's And we all have different grains of hair, different shades of skin, and our complexion is perfect for a system that uses us for target practice and labels us the under class The overweight, The obese, The big boned,” His name is Derrick Wilson. He is simply Blue underground, a lean and handsome 30-something Army brat, former welterweight, struggling barber and self-published poet who bravely peddles his book, "Corner Stores in the Middle of the Block," reciting his own words in the crowded subway. "I call it the A train Book Club," he says, working the fabled line from Harlem to East New York and back. "How much?" a corpulent young woman asked Wilson the other day. "Ten dollars," he said, holding out a copy of his 110-page urban poetry collection. Immediately, without a word, she turned her head. He stepped over on the train and continued Project Zero from the new book: They call me that light brown African offspring and some seem to think that all we like to eat is cheap Chinese food Which is chicken wings and fried rice with salt and pepper Extra ketchup ,Fish on Fridays, Government cheese, Peanut butter, Powdered milk, Churches fried Chicken, Kansas Fried Chicken, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Kennedy Fried Chicken, Mama and Papa's Fried Chicken, His and hers Fried Chicken, King Fried Chicken, His and hers Fried Chicken, King, Queen, Crown Fried Chicken, Royal Fried Chicken, Crispy Fried Chicken Extra crispy Fried Chicken, And Sister Shirley's from the fifth floor fried chicken" Now Wilson was standing on a sweltering platform at 125th Street in Harlem, waiting for a downtown train with the quieter, newer model subway cars. These cars are more conducive to poetry. Standing nearby, two mustached musicians in cowboy hats and boots, one with an accordion painted in the colors of the Mexican flag, the other with an acoustic guitar, also waited for an audience to arrive with the next train. "I have to compete with them, the candy guys and the panhandlers," Wilson said. Uptown, he lamented, the bookseller is at a definite disadvantage. "Where I live people are all concerned about clothes, new sneakers and the latest rap albums," said Wilson, who was born in Harlem but has lived in Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Germany. He now lives in the Bronx. "They'll buy clothes before they buy a book." Young men and women walk around like mobile bill-boards for Nike and Sean John. "You know, there are only two bookstores in the Bronx," Wilson was saying. "It is culturally deprived. And a lot of young guys don't wear shoes or slacks until it is time to go to court or a funeral. You hardly see any shoe stores in Harlem." A former welterweight who made only $200 in his first pro fight, Wilson trained under Donald Turner, a well-known corner man for former champions Evander Holyfield and Aaron Pryor. But Wilson's words would prove mightier than his punch. "He just didn't have the skills to go with his desire and drive," Turner, a trainer since 1969, said on the phone from his home in North Carolina. "He's the only guy that I ever told that he should do something else and he took heed. He respected what I said. "He's probably one of my favorite guys in my whole life," Turner added. "That includes my kids." Wilson was cutting hair at Uptown Cut Masters on 144th Street and Eighth Avenue in the late 1990s whenhe started writing seriously. His calling came in 1998, he said, during a poetry reading at Harlem's Sugar Shack. A friend who ran the barber shop, Jerry Marsh, to whom Wilson dedicated the book, loaned him $2,000 to publish the first 1,000 copies. "I saw a great potential in him," Marsh said. "I encouraged him to do more." So Wilson penned his socially conscious poems in a notebook in his Bronx apartment each night until 2, 3 in the morning. He attended a poetry writing workshop given by Nuyorican poet Willie Perdomo. "You know the sign of a good, strong poet is somebody who can stop you in the middle of the subway and say, 'Here, listen to this,'" said Perdomo, author of the book "Where a Nickel Costs a Dime." "In a sense what Blue is doing is giving voice to a lot of those people on the subway." Perdomo said the A-train prophet, as he calls Blue, is the antidote to ubiquitous subway service disruptions. "What makes Blue unique is that he is clever, that he is fearless," he said. "He's not worried about always being PC or sounding right. That's always something you respect in any writer or artist. "Blue is the kind of poet we all need every day, especially given how frustrating the subways can be sometimes. We need to hear his voice." Email: ray.sanchez.newsday.com Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.