Lucia Perillo

American poet

Lucia Maria Perillo (September 30, 1958 – October 16, 2016) was an American poet.^[1]

In 2000, Perillo was recognized with a "genius grant" as part of the MacArthur Fellows Program.^[2]

Life and career

Perillo was born in Manhattan on September 30, 1958^[3] and grew up in Irvington.^[4]

Her work appeared in The New Yorker,^[5] The Atlantic and The Kenyon Review,^[6] among other magazines. A traditional poet of mostly free-verse personal reflection, she wrote extensively about living with multiple sclerosis in her poems and essays.^[7] Time Will Clean the Carcass Bones was her last book of poetry (Copper Canyon Press, 2016). Her 2012 collection of short fiction, Happiness is a Chemical in the Brain, was shortlisted for the 2013 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize. She died on October 16, 2016, in Olympia, Washington, aged 58.^[4]^[8]

Awards

1989 Samuel French Morse Award, Northeastern University Press
1990 Norma Farber First Book Award, Poetry Society of America for Dangerous Life
1991 PEN/Revson Award, Pen American Center, NY
Purdue University's Emery Poetry Prize
1993 Illinois Arts Council Award for Creative Non-Fiction
1994 Finalist, National Poetry Series
1995 Verna Emery Poetry Prize, Purdue University Press
1995 Iowa Poetry Prize
1997 Kate Tufts Discovery Award
1997 Balcones Prize, Austin Community College for The Body Mutinies
1998 Chad Walsh Poetry Prize, The Beloit Poetry Journal
1998 Pushcart Prize for "Bad Boy Number Seventeen"
2000 MacArthur Fellows Program award^[9]
2003 Pushcart Prize for "Shrike Tree"
2005 Pushcart Prize for "In the Confessional Mode"
2006 Finalist, Los Angeles Times Book Prize
2010 Washington State Book Award for Inseminating the Elephant^[10]
2010 Bobbit Prize, Library of Congress for Inseminating the Elephant
2010 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry finalist for Inseminating the Elephant
2012 WA State Governor's Arts Medal
2012 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award finalist for Happiness is a Chemical in the Brain
2013 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize finalist for Happiness is a Chemical in the Brain
2013 National Book Critics Circle Award finalist in Poetry for On the Spectrum of Possible Deaths^[11]
2013 Shelley Memorial Award
2013 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award for On the Spectrum of Possible Deaths^[12]

Bibliography

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (June 2019)

Poetry

Collections

Dangerous life. Northeastern University Press. 1989.
The Body Mutinies. Purdue University Press. 1996. ISBN 978-1-55753-083-7.
The Oldest Map with the Name America: New and Selected Poems. Random House. 1999. ISBN 978-0-375-50160-9.
Luck is luck: poems. Random House, Inc. 2005. ISBN 9781400063239.
Inseminating the Elephant. Copper Canyon Press. 2009. ISBN 978-1-55659-291-1.
On the Spectrum of Possible Deaths. Copper Canyon Press. 2012. ISBN 978-1-55659-397-0.
Time Will Clean the Carcass Bones. Copper Canyon Press. 2016. ISBN 978-1-55659-473-1

List of poems

Title	Year	First published	Reprinted/collected
Blacktail	2014	"Blacktail". The New Yorker. 90 (24): 33. August 25, 2014.
The News (A Manifesto)	1986	"The News (A Manifesto)"^[13] Ploughshares Issue 41 Winter 1986	Dangerous Life (1989), Time Will Clean the Carcass Bones (2016)^[14]
First Job/Seventeen	1986	"First Job/Seventeen" Ploughshares Vol 12, No. 4 1986	Dangerous Life (1989), Time Will Clean the Carcass Bones (2016)^[14]
Dangerous Life	1989	"Dangerous Life" Dangerous Life 1989^[15]	Time Will Clean the Carcass Bones (2016)^[14]
The Revelation	1989	"The Revelation" Dangerous Life 1989^[15]	Time Will Clean the Carcass Bones (2016)^[14]

Non-fiction

I've Heard the Vultures Singing. Trinity University Press. 2007. ISBN 978-1-59534-031-3.

Fiction

Happiness Is a Chemical in the Brain. W. W. Norton & Company. 2012. ISBN 9780393083538.

References

^ "Poet and novelist Lucia Perillo dies at 58". yahoo.com. Retrieved 24 October 2016.
^ Langer, Emily. "Lucia Perillo, poet who unflinchingly dissected mortality, dies at 58", The Washington Post, October 25, 2016. Accessed October 27, 2016. "A decade into her career, and after the publication of two more poetry volumes, she received a 2000 MacArthur fellowship, commonly known as a 'genius grant.'"
^ Mark Doty (18 September 2012). The Best American Poetry 2012: Series Editor David Lehman. Simon and Schuster. p. 192. ISBN 978-1-4391-8154-6.
^ ^a ^b Gates, Anita. "Lucia Perillo, Whose Illness Shaped Her Poetry, Dies at 58", The New York Times, October 25, 2016. Accessed October 26, 2016. "Lucia Maria Perillo was born on Sept. 30, 1958, in Manhattan and grew up in suburban Irvington, N.Y."
^ "New Yorker Search". newyorker.com. Retrieved 24 October 2016.
^ "Search for "lucia perillo" - The Kenyon Review". kenyonreview.org. Retrieved 24 October 2016.
^ Perillo, Lucia (2007). I've Heard the Vultures Singing. San Antonio: Trinity University. ISBN 978-1-59534-031-3.
^ "Poet and novelist Lucia Perillo dies at 58 |". Archived from the original on 2016-10-24. Retrieved 2016-10-24.
^ Meet the Class of 2000: Lucia M. Perillo, MacArthur Fellows Program. Accessed October 27, 2016. "Lucia Perillo is a young poet whose signature voice is marked by an urban speed and a narrative style driven by characterization and drama."
^ Copper Canyon Press
^ John Williams (January 14, 2012). "National Book Critics Circle Names 2012 Award Finalists". The New York Times. Retrieved January 15, 2013.
^ "2013 Pacific Northwest Book Awards Announced", NW Book Loves, January 7, 2013. Accessed October 27, 2016. "The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, the indie bookstore booster behind this blog, announced the winners of their annual book awards today. Congratulations are in order for... Lucia Perillo (Olympia, WA) for On the Spectrum of Possible Deaths"
^ "The News (A Manifesto) | Ploughshares". www.pshares.org. Retrieved 2022-03-27.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Perillo, Lucia (18 April 2017). Time will clean the carcass bones : selected and new poems. Copper Canyon Press. ISBN 978-1-55659-502-8. OCLC 959037464.
^ ^a ^b Perillo, Lucia (1989). Dangerous Life.