How the ‘Lil Ghetto Boy’ Who Grew up in Bovoni Learned to Write

Classmate: “Where you live?”

Me: “I live Bovoni.”

Classmate: “In deh projects??’

Me: “Yeah.”

Classmate: “Dah mean you rough den but you don’t act like a Bovoni man at all, you different.”

Me: “I don’t understand how I should act.”

Exchanges like this happened often when I was growing up, and today, it’s not possible to ignore how those encounters laid the gro…