{"title":"Willie Perdomo","description":"Willie Perdomo is the author of Where a Nickel Costs a Dime, a finalist for the Poetry Society of America Norma Farber First Book Award, and Smoking Lovely,  a winner of the PEN Beyond Margins Award. His collection The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon is a National Book Critics Circle 2014 Finalist for Poetry. His poems have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Bomb, and other publications. He is an Instructor of English at Phillips Exeter Academy.","products":[{"product_id":"the-essential-hits-of-shorty-bon-bon-poems-paperback","title":"The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon: Poems - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA suite of poems about a percussionist in 1970 Spanish Harlem music circles, from the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Crazy Bunch\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA National Book Critics Circle 2014 Finalist for Poetry \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Through dream song and elegy, alternate takes and tempos, prizewinning poet Willie Perdomo's third collection crackles with vitality and dynamism as it imagines the life of a percussionist, rebuilding the landscape of his apprenticeship, love, diaspora, and death. At the beginning of his infernal journey, Shorty Bon Bon recalls his live studio recording with a classic 1970s descarga band, sharing his recollection with an unidentified poet. This opening section is followed by a call-and-response with his greatest love, a singer named Rose, and a visit to Puerto Rico that inhabits a surreal nationalistic dreamscape, before a final jam session where Shorty recognizes his end and a trio of voices seek to converge on his elegy.","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51376688857311,"sku":"9780143125235","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/8WPPXpk5z39780143125235.webp?v=1789221698"},{"product_id":"the-crazy-bunch-paperback","title":"The Crazy Bunch - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom a prize-winning poet, a new collection that chronicles a weekend in the life of a group of friends coming of age in East Harlem at the dawn of the hip-hop era\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWillie Perdomo, a native of East Harlem, has won praise as a hip, playful, historically engaged poet whose restlessly lyrical language mixes \"city life with a sense of the transcendent\" (NPR.org). In his fourth collection, The Crazy Bunch, Perdomo returns to his beloved neighborhood to create a vivid, kaleidoscopic portrait of a \"crew\" coming of age in East Harlem at the beginning of the 1990s. In poems written in couplets, vignettes, sketches, riffs, and dialogue, Perdomo recreates a weekend where surviving members of the crew recall a series of tragic events: \"That was the summer we all tried to fly. All but one of us succeeded.\"","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51378252579039,"sku":"9780143132691","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/V1LRRCgFN09780143132691.webp?v=1789250869"},{"product_id":"where-a-nickel-costs-a-dime-paperback","title":"Where a Nickel Costs a Dime - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eWhere a Nickel Costs a Dime\u003c\/em\u003e captures the hip-hop rhythms and in-your-face intensity of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, a downtown Manhattan club where the hottest young poets are finding their fame.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Willie Perdomo's poems, in the tradition of Amiri Baraka, Langston Hughes, and Ntozake Shange, meet at the intersection of the street and the academy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The world in these piercing and heartbreaking poems is Spanish Harlem, \"where night turns to day without sleep,\" where \"Puerto Rico stays on our minds when the fresh breeze of cafe con leche y pan con mantequilla comes through half-opened windows and under our doors,\" where \"babies fall asleep to the bark of a German shepherd,\" where \"Independence Day is celebrated everyday,\" where \"the police come into your house without knocking. They throw us off rooftops and say we slipped. They shoot my father and say he was crazy. They put a bullet in my head and say they found me that way.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Blending images of street life, drugs, and AIDS against hope and determination, Willie Perdomo is a cutting-edge bard who speaks to the soul of his generation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51378263785695,"sku":"9780393313833","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/szoBtCrDsg9780393313833.webp?v=1789250897"}],"url":"https:\/\/blackandbarhe.com\/collections\/willie-perdomo.oembed","provider":"Black \u0026 Barhe Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}