The Crazy Bunch

Starred review from April 1, 2019

Winner of the 2004 PEN Open Book Award, Perdomo (The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon) explores his city, Harlem, in a mixture of poetry and narrative that together dramatize his observations and encounters. As he navigates the New York borough, touching on its history, people, music, struggles, and cultural diversity, his poetry works as an act of seeing, which makes each perception a form of knowledge and awakening. But if Harlem is the poet's primary stage, that stage is intersected by a range of issues such as justice, friendship, loneliness, love, and art. Here, the poet is a wanderer trying to reconcile local specificity with universal space, and he focuses on intimate details to conjure up worlds of love and uncertainty: "We used to say/ that's my heart right here/ As if to say/ Don't mess with her right there." A rapid succession of images captured in lyrical language gather the glistering jolts of surprises, everydayness, intimacies, tragedies, and dreams in people and objects. VERDICT Perdomo flowingly records a voyage of reminiscence undertaken with friends to identify and coalesce the crucial aspects of this most memorable place. Highly recommended.--Sadiq Alkoriji, Broward Cty. Lib. Syst., FL

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 22, 2019
In the latest book by Perdomo (The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon), the “Crazy Bunch” refers to a rotating cast of characters from an East Harlem block. The people who move through these pages are casually introduced (“Jujo spit and spit and spit and spit.// Popeye had a villainous laugh.// Dre loved to crash revivals”). Their slang, shibboleths, and habits are presented with an immediate intimacy, as if the reader affectionately knows each or grew up on the same street. Perdomo sprinkles in riffs on Gwendolyn Brooks (“Okey Doke/ Flat Broke// Hang Out/ No Doubt// Black Out/ Death Count”), dialogue, rules and lists, Santería ceremonies, and funeral rites, creating both a novella-in-verse that tells the story of a weekend in Harlem and a compelling portrait of a time and place long gone. Perdomo’s masterful eye and ear stand out: the musicality of these poems is as rich as the detailed histories of the people inside them. By the end, the reader, too, yearns for the past and all the people lost in these pages: “Who among us believed in the great scheme of life and still had enough stage presence to carry the night?”

March 1, 2019
New York-born Puerto Rican poet Perdomo has been widely recognized for his streetwise lyrics and crackling depictions of life in NYC at the turn of the twenty-first century. In this collection of witty dialogue, fast couplets, and hip jargon, Perdomo immerses readers in his native East Harlem of the 1990s, centered around the self-proclaimed Crazy Bunch: Skinicky, Brother Lo, Phat Phil, and a cast of neighborhood characters like the local bruja and "The Poetry Cops," who interview members of the crew following the tragic death of one of its members. Perdomo's colloquial, storytelling style is in full effect ("Angel looked like a Taino Valentino with / a Young Lord Afro"), replete with nostalgic recollections of childhood haunts, striking in their simplicity ("A leaf storm collages a backboard"). The result is both a whirlwind of colorful rhythms and an enduring portrait of tight-knit friends suffering through loss. A talented wordsmith, Perdomo is the author of three previous collections of poetry as well as two children's books, Clemente! (2010) and Visiting Langston (2002).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)