Lucia Perillo’s fifth book of poems, Inseminating the Elephant, published by Copper Canyon Press, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2010, received the Washington State Book Award and recently received the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt prize from the Library of Congress. Perillo published six books—five poetry collections and one book of essays. She is a 2000 MacArthur Foundation Fellow. Happiness is a Chemical in the Brain, her collection of short stories, was a Publishers' Weekly Best Book of 2012.
Perillo’s poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and the Paris Review as well as other magazines and journals. Her books of poetry have been recognized with many awards, including a PEN Revson Foundation Fellowship, the Kate Tufts Poetry Award, the Norma Farber Award, the Kingsley-Tufts award for her book of poems Luck is Luck, which also was a finalist for the L.A. Times prize.
She died on Oct. 16, 2016, at the age of 58.
Lucia Perillo’s website: http://www.luciaperillo.com/
Lucia reading at Boston Court: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuC2ie9zeZ8