The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon

by Willie Perdomo

Overview

A suite of poems about a percussionist in 1970 Spanish Harlem music circles, from the author of The Crazy Bunch

A National Book Critics Circle 2014 Finalist for Poetry

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143125235
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/25/2014
Series:	Penguin Poets
Pages:	80
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Like Bread xiii

How I Came to My Name 1

How I Came to My Name 3

Bembé-Faced 4

The Birth of Shorty Bon Bon (Take #1) 5

Arroz con Son y Clave 6

Sangre Viva 7

The Birth of Shorty Bon Bon (Take #2) 8

Start from the End Going Toward the End 9

Syncopated Licks 10

The Birth of Shorty Bon Bon (Take #3) 11

How Cool Was I 12

The Birth of Shorty Bon Bon (Take #4) 13

The Was of Things 14

The Birth of Shorty Bon Bon (Take #5) 15

To Be with you 17

The Soul May Better Understand 19

Dear Shorty (No. 1) 20

Delicious Numbers 21

Dear Shorty (No. 2) 22

The City of You 23

Dear Shorty (No. 3) 24

How It Went Down 25

Dear Shorty (No. 4) 26

Maybe Under Some Other Sky 27

Dear Shorty (No. 5) 28

When the Cure Is Worse Than the Sickness 29

Dear Shorty (No. 6) 30

Blues for Rose 31

Dear Shorty (No. 7) 32

Fracture, Flow 33

Have It Your Way: Combo 35

1 Official Business 35

2 Feliz Navidad 36

3 Sanjuanero Swag 37

4 Son de Lolita 38

5 Conjugation Games 39

6 Fracture, Flow 40

7 Plaza Las Delicias 41

8 How to Bum-Rush an Island & Blow Up the Spot 42

9 Noches de Galería 43

Shorty Bon Bon's Freedom Song 44

The Birth of Shorty Bon Bon: Solo 45

The Birth of Shorty Bon Bon (Take #6) 47

Side A (3:2) 48

Side B (2:3) 50

The Birth of Shorty Bon Bon (Final Take) 52

Notes 53

Acknowledgments 58

Shout-outs and Big Ups 59

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Praise for The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon:
 
“A vivid portrait of a late-20th century Nuyorican musical community. . .Perdomo manages to mix the language of city life with a sense of the transcendent.”—NPR.org
 
“With his new collection of poems, Perdomo offers a soulful melody that is as deep and vital and dynamic as the poet’s roots in New York City’s Nuyorican poetry scene. . .his third book is mined from the marrow of salsa and steeped in the spirit of son and cocolos that inhabit the poet’s beating heart. . .With Shorty, Willie exercises a mastery of language and imagery that hums us into a furious clave of grace.”—Poets and Writers
 
“Willie Perdomo’s lines are ritualistic codes whose speaking is likely to summon the saints or ‘whistle evil out of [your] garden.’  If your ears, feet, and heart have not been initiated yet into the myth-making genius, sly observances, hip-speak, and erudition of this poet’s pen then The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon is your body’s reparation and reconciliation act, your own bomb-diggity.”—Major Jackson, author of Holding Company
 
"In these poems, Perdomo gathers the shards of what has been broken or lost and forges a relentlessly lyrical language out of the fragments, reminding us that this, when done lovingly, urgently, astutely, is a way to both recover and survive history. This is a gorgeous, historically engaged collection of poems from a poet in the depths of his true language and practice."—Aracelis Girmay, author of Teeth and Kingdom Animalia

“The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon is combustible poetry, bursting with love and longing and the potent tropical rhythms that fuel Willie Perdomo’s imagination.”—Jessica Hagedorn, author of Toxicology and Dogeaters

“Reading The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon is like walking into a Bembé, just at the moment when the gods have descended, the moment between the silence of awe and the still shrill cry of the singers. And Perdomo's skill and lyrical voice is like a wet finger drawn slowly, agonizingly over the taut skin of a drum face, until the very last moment when it explodes into beat. A beautiful, accomplished book.”—Chris Abani, author of The Secret History of Las Vegas and The Virgin of Flames
 
"How did we do without this book for so long? Willie Perdomo excavates the history and colors of son and salsa down to the bones of slavery and into the vivid streets of Nuyorican America. This descarga of a book, this Bembé of poetry will set up in the middle of your palms, mold your head into a conga polyrhythm and never miss a beat.  Best pay attention, ya'll."—Tyehimba Jess, author of Leadbelly

“Willie Perdomo is one of the funkiest poets writing today. Every one of his poems comes with its own soundtrack, so it makes sense that he could give us a collection as original and melodious as The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon. Like the imaginary percussionist the book is named after, this collection is part myth, part elegy, and all rhythm. Through these remarkable poems, we see the intimate moments of a man whose life is driven by drums and who, in the end, makes us all more aware of the music we live in.”—Adrian Matejka, author of The Big Smoke 

Editorial Reviews

08/04/2014
Dedicated to his uncle Pedro, who played percussion on studio albums by salsa great Charlie Palmieri, Perdomo (Smoking Lovely) opens his third collection with a salvo of sonnets and creation stories that try to imagine how his uncle came to inhabit the book's eponymous nickname (itself a nod to a story from the legendary Nuyorican Poets Café of a homeless poet with the same name). Written as a series of "takes," these poems ask questions about Shorty's life and evade themselves with flare and a smirk when they answer. "How did Shorty play it again?" Perdomo writes. "Like his birth certificate/ was lost forever." Though these poems can stand on the strength of their cadence and vocabulary alone—with their "salseros, the real-live soneros,/ the palo-players that gang-busted/ dancehalls with fish-crate yambú"—Perdomo broadens our understanding of his uncle by including a series of monologues in which he speaks candidly about Rose, a woman he loved "the way we tremble / in the glow of dead ass truth."(Rose herself is given a chance to speak in a series of epistles) With a selection of endnotes that doubles as a primer in Puerto Rican arts and culture, Perdomo's work is a sprawling and ambitious take on death and the concept of legacy. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon:
 
“A vivid portrait of a late-20th century Nuyorican musical community. . .Perdomo manages to mix the language of city life with a sense of the transcendent.”—NPR.org
 
“With his new collection of poems, Perdomo offers a soulful melody that is as deep and vital and dynamic as the poet’s roots in New York City’s Nuyorican poetry scene. . .his third book is mined from the marrow of salsa and steeped in the spirit of son and cocolos that inhabit the poet’s beating heart. . .With Shorty, Willie exercises a mastery of language and imagery that hums us into a furious clave of grace.”—Poets and Writers
 
“Willie Perdomo’s lines are ritualistic codes whose speaking is likely to summon the saints or ‘whistle evil out of [your] garden.’  If your ears, feet, and heart have not been initiated yet into the myth-making genius, sly observances, hip-speak, and erudition of this poet’s pen then The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon is your body’s reparation and reconciliation act, your own bomb-diggity.”—Major Jackson, author of Holding Company
 
"In these poems, Perdomo gathers the shards of what has been broken or lost and forges a relentlessly lyrical language out of the fragments, reminding us that this, when done lovingly, urgently, astutely, is a way to both recover and survive history. This is a gorgeous, historically engaged collection of poems from a poet in the depths of his true language and practice."—Aracelis Girmay, author of Teeth and Kingdom Animalia

“The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon is combustible poetry, bursting with love and longing and the potent tropical rhythms that fuel Willie Perdomo’s imagination.”—Jessica Hagedorn, author of Toxicology and Dogeaters

“Reading The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon is like walking into a Bembé, just at the moment when the gods have descended, the moment between the silence of awe and the still shrill cry of the singers. And Perdomo's skill and lyrical voice is like a wet finger drawn slowly, agonizingly over the taut skin of a drum face, until the very last moment when it explodes into beat. A beautiful, accomplished book.”—Chris Abani, author of The Secret History of Las Vegas and The Virgin of Flames
 
"How did we do without this book for so long? Willie Perdomo excavates the history and colors of son and salsa down to the bones of slavery and into the vivid streets of Nuyorican America. This descarga of a book, this Bembé of poetry will set up in the middle of your palms, mold your head into a conga polyrhythm and never miss a beat.  Best pay attention, ya'll."—Tyehimba Jess, author of Leadbelly

“Willie Perdomo is one of the funkiest poets writing today. Every one of his poems comes with its own soundtrack, so it makes sense that he could give us a collection as original and melodious as The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon. Like the imaginary percussionist the book is named after, this collection is part myth, part elegy, and all rhythm. Through these remarkable poems, we see the intimate moments of a man whose life is driven by drums and who, in the end, makes us all more aware of the music we live in.”—Adrian Matejka, author of The Big Smoke 

From the Publisher

04/15/2014
Winner of the PEN Beyond Margins Award, Perdomo portrays percussionist Shorty Bon Bon in charged, edgy poems that have all the shimmer and reverberance of a dance hall, moving from his live studio recordings with a 1970s descarga band, to the smoky passion between him and a singer named Rose, and beyond. "Then I/ Shook all the safety from their style," says Shorty Bon Bon of his band mates. So does Perdomo.—BH

Library Journal