Season of Shagginess by John Perrault

Working from ruins of loss—of loved ones, of his dear wife—John Perrault fashions an edifice of memories from notebooks, letters, and songs. In his unmistakable and moving voice, he measures the distance of longing and the proximity of oblivion through aging and death. In “Grief” he writes, “The leaves on our sad scraggy maple tree / flutter crimson over a twisted trunk. / They’re almost ready to let go—but not yet. / They resist.  As if they can’t accept the fall.” Distilled and direct, these poems engage us in a spiritual and elegiac journey through the paradox of being—both here and beyond.

–Margo Taft Stever, author of Cracked Piano

Thoroughly felt and beautifully observed, John Perrault’s poems trace the crucial motions time puts us through. The context is earthy and earthly, that haunting contrast between the sturdily transient and the seemingly perennial. The words have an inhabited depth that comes with age—the awareness of that long tail we call “the past,” how tangible it is, how intangible. Meanwhile, as the poet wisely puts it, “today’s a gift.”

–Baron Wormser, author of Unidentified Sighing Objects