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

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

External links

• Poetry.LA's video of Lucia Perillo's reading at Boston Court Performing Arts Center, Pasadena CA, 3/08/2010