Weeds grow where they want to; not where they're told to...
erbacce-press started the erbacce-prize for poetry in 2009. An entirely free-to-enter competition designed to attract both new and established writers. We were staggered at the response which produced over fourteen hundred entries from all over the world including the UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, all over Europe and Ireland. Four judges took six months to come up with a winner and that winner was
Puma Perl!
For the past six months we have worked closely with her to produce her 'prize' the truly amazing, provocative and original
knuckle tattoos
To buy this perfect-bound book go
to our 'Shop' pages (top-right)
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Puma Perl’s Knuckle Tattoos is brilliant, perhaps even magnificent, and absolutely stellar. Perl is both poet and anti-poet whose craft is so strong you almost don’t realize you are reading poetry. Funny, sad, angry, curious; Knuckle tattoos takes you a 1000 places from a singular unique voice. When I grow up I wanna write as well as Puma Perl
– jck hnry – writer/with the patience of monuments
(neoPoiesis Press, 2009)
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Puma Perl writes poems chiselled in granite with fingernails. Her poems ring like Leonard Cohen songs, in line after line of taut language, describing dark emotion and the illusion of structure. She dredges deep and scratches hard to find the crumbs of dazzle in a life of eviction, addiction, pain and loss. The Francis Bacon of poetry, Perl uses language to paint images that maintain a surface clarity, but reverberate far deeper into the dark side of the psyche, without ever straying to cliché. The narrator never blinks at the world where innocence is not allowed as she travels from Dali-esque illusion to deep desperation, and – finally – to the only true resolve: to somehow keep going. The fact that these poems exist is confirmation of what Bukowski called the goal of poetry: to show the beauty of the horror. Perl succeeds remarkably, with a collection that stands alone for its integrity, guts and revelations.
- Kat Georges, Founder/Editor, Three Rooms Press
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Puma Perl is tough, funny, straight ahead and unforgettable. A survivor with a knockout punch and a heart of gold who claims she never wrote a love poem. But don’t be fooled, Knuckle Tattoos is an epic love poem to the curb and back dressed in leopard print, sporting some fuck me pumps working the thin edge. Puma is jazz, punk and the ghost of Ava Gardner. A subway angel who talks to god, Puma Perl is a perl of a girl and a poet who writes like her heart is on fire.
- S.A. Griffin, Editor, The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry
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Also by Puma Perl two chap books; Belinda and her Friends and Ruby True which can be purchased direct from erbacce-sales by clicking HERE to open an email connection
To read a review of Belinda click here...
...and to find more about this amazing poet click here.
...and the latest chapbook from Puma is Ruby True; my personal favourite
PARTY AT THE GOD HOUSE
Belinda’s teaching Stacey to salsa
Sandy’s back on a Harley
Tommy Pray lifts weights
and smokes cigarettes
Cousin Willie watches baseball
in high definition
Judy wears a red bandana
Eddie rides bareback
Jon dances like a white boy
Hector sings at my window
Jimi plays the clouds
I lie awake
like a starving dog,
waiting for an invitation
Mr. and Mrs. God
request your presence
Party at the God House
Ghosts lean against dusty cars
smoking Newports, hustling change
spilling wine for the brothers upstate
In dreams, I arrive at the party
Chelsea Hotel, Room 100
I borrow Marilyn’s polka dot dress
stilettos donated by Sylvia Rivera
Just like Don Cherry, I play
a rhythm on the door,
and step over the threshold
into the light.
My eyes open.
Dogs bark.
My invitation drips blood.
The eighties took my partners
The nineties stole my lovers
I have one friend.
Her name is Ruby True.