Emily Perez is the author of Backyard Migration Route and a recipient of grants and scholarships from the Artist Trust, Jack Straw Writers, Bread Loaf Writers' Workshop, Summer Literary Seminars, and Inprint, Houston. She is a member of the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley and her poems have appeared in journals including Crab Orchard Review, Calyx, Borderlands, and DIAGRAM. She teaches English in Denver, where she lives with her husband and sons.
"With House of Sugar, House of Stone, Emily Pérez has allowed the
uncanny to creep through the architectural cracks in our childhood
psyches, bringing back to us our lullabies and tales, mysteriously
changed. The result is both haunting and beautiful. The music here,
combined with the familiar motifs (which morph and enlarge under
the spell of this poet), forge lines and images and narrative--both
tantalizingly fragmented and satisfyingly complete--of genuine
power. The collection pairs story with song, specifics with
innuendo, in such a compelling way that I dare anyone to read the
first poem and put this book back down. This is something strange
and new--and very exciting."
--Laura Kasischke"House of Sugar, House of Stone draws heavily on
Grimms' timeless fairy tales to tell its story, but Pérez casts the
themes of motherhood, betrayal, and longing in a light that is
unmistakably contemporary. The effect is powerful and
devastating."
--Blas Falconer"Emily Pérez knows how to cast a spell. In this
smart, brave book, she uses her honed musicality to enchant the
reader while she plumbs the great domestic mysteries: How do you
wed and stay a self? How do you both procreate and create? The dark
forests of Grimms' fairy tales pulse through her poems. By the time
you leave the wilderness of her singing, you will have been
changed. Home will never look the same again."
--Sasha West "Several poems in House of Sugar, House of Stone draw
from the world of Grimm's Fairy Tales and ingeniously connect that
world of fantastical circumstances and consequences with
contemporary family life. Reading through the collection, I found
myself noting the influence and color these poems lend to other
poems grounded in meditations on more personal and local
circumstances and consequences. . . . The more personal poems,
however, present a struggle with artistry and responsibility that
is all the more relatable for its directness."
--The Friday Influence
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