Smoking Lovely: The Remix

by Willie Perdomo, Urayoán Noel (Introduction)

Overview

Smoking Lovely's explorations of poetry and the neoliberal city at the intersection of community and commodity. In this radically revised new edition, Perdomo shifts the poem into mostly second person, thereby further accentuating its self-reflexive and complex exploration of self-and/as-other, and of the simultaneous othering, commodification, and spectacularization of Afro-diasporic bodies and cultural forms.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781642594638
Publisher:	Haymarket Books
Publication date:	04/06/2021
Series:	Break Beat Poets Series
Pages:	80
Sales rank:	1,086,890
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Willie Perdomo is the author of The Crazy Bunch (Penguin Poets, 2019) The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon (Penguin Poets, 2014), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and winner of the International Latino Book Award; Smoking Lovely (Rattapallax, 2004), winner of the PEN Open Book Award, and Where a Nickel Costs a Dime (Norton, 1996), a finalist for the Poetry Society of America Norma Farber First Book Award. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature, Poetry, Bomb Magazine, and African Voices. He is currently a Lucas Arts Program Literary Fellow and teaches English at Phillips Exeter Academy.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Embodied Spaces of Smoking Lovely by Urayoán Noel 1

Mad Funny Style: A 10-Minute Play 8

Smoking Lovely: The Remix

I Papo's Ars Poetica

Spotlight at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe 23

The Day Hector Lavoe Died 25

Papo's Ars Poetica 27

You Pay For What You Get, But You Never Get What You Pay For 28

New Jack City 29

Franklin Avenue Snack Box 30

Should Old Shit Be Forgot 32

Brother Lo and the Maxims 34

Forty-One Bullets Off Broadway 35

The Flood 37

II Stop Signs

Tenderloin 39

Smoking Lovely 41

Oh Shit, Blues 42

Seesaw Love Song 43

Electronic Kites 44

French Roast 46

Ten-Pound Draw 47

Black Boots 48

Stop Signs 49

Shit to Write About 50

Word to Everything I Love 52

Notes for a Slow Jam 54

III The New Boogaloo

The New Boogaloo 58

Poet Looking for Free Get High 61

Open Mic at Make the Road By Walking, Inc. 62

Crazy Bunch Barbeque at Jefferson Park 63

Writing About What You Know 65

Kicking 68

Un Amor de la Calle 69

Look What Found 70

Reflections on the Metro-North, Spring 1997 71

Some "After Words" 73

Acknowledgments 81

About the Author 82

Editorial Reviews

"Smoking Lovely, Willie Perdomo 's second volume of poetry, confirms his hard won place in American letters. Addiction, poverty, class and racial identity, love and recovery are examined with a devastating and streetwise voice, marked with irrefutable artistic integrity and craftsmanship. These poems sing, howl, and heal with a sad and searing wisdom akin to genius. Smoking Lovely is destined to become not just one of the best books of the year but of the decade."
—Sapphire, author of Push

"Willie Perdomo is an electric poet. His poems crackle with energy. The poet knows his beloved barrio, what to celebrate and what to condemn. He also has the courage to confront his own demons. There is raw pain in this voice, and much more: humor, irony, music, intelligence."
—Martin Espada, author of City of Coughing

"Willie Perdomo is a necessary and insistent voice in the current American literary scene."
—Publishers Weekly

"Smoking Lovely sings to both the eyes and ears, placing oral and visual patterns in dramatic tension with one another. And the pleasure offered by this vibrant collection is precisely the pleasure of watching and hearing the polyphonic performance in vibrant poetic terms. "
—American Book Review

Praise for The Crazy Bunch:

"Set during one weekend in the early 1990s, Perdomo 's fourth book celebrates a crew of hip-hop-loving friends in East Harlem with his customary heart and bravura language."
—New York Times Book Review

From the Publisher