It’s rare that one comes across a book of essays that grips you so tightly that, even though you’re a WAHM running after a toddler, you can’t put it down – or at least, you reach for it immediately once the toddler is asleep.
I had never heard of the poet, Lucia Perillo, though she won many awards. I let most poetry come to me, through recommendations and lucky finds in bookstores and libraries. Perillo never crossed my path, until I was sent a review copy (unasked) of her new book of essays, called I’ve Heard the Vultures Singing.
Being a bit of a, uhm, pessimistic, no, uhm, okay, glum (sometimes) person, I was intigrued by the title. Two sentences into the book, I was hooked. It certainly lives up to its title: Perillo writes about how she lives with disease (in her case, Mutiple Sclerosis), and she does so with the darkest sense of humor I have ever seen on paper. I laughed out loud, I wowed an insight, and in the end came away with great uneasiness.
I hope I got all of that, in more detail, in my review of the book on Suite101. You can read it here. Enjoy!
I am going to scour the second hand bookstores for her poetry books.