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Luck Is Luck: Poems (Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award)

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There's nothing like discovering - and welcoming -- a new poet into your life. Lucia Perillo's talent has been celebrated by critics and colleagues alike. In particular, she is noted for her deft juxtaposition of popular culture with weightier issues, all of it accomplished with minimum pretension and much self-deprecation. For this reader, the word that comes to mind is compassion. Compassion for herself, as she beholds how time has meddled with the plans and dreams of her youth, and compassion for the rest of us, who are undoubtedly in the same boat. After getting to know her poems, you will likely discover the bittersweet facts of her life story: the initial career in the outdoors, as a forest ranger, the subsequent onset of multiple sclerosis, and the challenges that ensued. Then, perhaps when it was most needed, came the awarding of the MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant, a huge sum, which apparently enabled Perillo to restructure her life to accommodate her progressive illness. There are some references to her current situation ("...by the trail where I walked, back when I could walk,/ before life pinned me on its thorn."), but many of the poems just make you smile, paradoxically, at the sad humor and the flawed beauty that graces each of our lives. "Hard luck," she says, "is luck, nonetheless." But how to convey the winning, unsentimental touch of Perillo, who entertains, even as she shines a light on the things we usually hide -- or hide from? Read the poems and see. You'll encounter creeks, trees, all manner of birds and fish; you'll ponder the high suicide rate of dentists, Christmases present and past, "Eddie Butterford's blue Dodge," poems "without breasts," first-time sex in front of a "jury" of "trusty busty" Barbie dolls (included the eerie fact that both she and her early boyfriend were later to be "stuck with the same disease"), romantic troubadours in Southern France, angry black crows (armless "Little Elvises") screaming from tree branches, and poignant, even fanciful, thoughts concerning the death of her father. Here's how the magic happens: you think you're reading amusing observations about crows and cars, Barbies and birds, but meanwhile, simultaneously, a window is opening, below the surface, onto some harsh, tough facts about this life. Then, as you begin to despair, you feel a warm hand press gently on your shoulder. That's Lucia Perillo telling you she's been there, she understands.