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Jennifer Perrine

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Jennifer Perrine

Goodreads Author


Born
October 08

Website

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Member Since
June 2007

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Jennifer Perrine is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Beautiful Outlaw (Kelsey Street Press, 2025), winner of the QTBIPOC Book Prize. Perrine's other books include Again; No Confession, No Mass, winner of the 2016 Publishing Triangle Audre Lorde Award and the 2014 Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry; In the Human Zoo, recipient of the 2010 Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize; and The Body Is No Machine, winner of the 2008 Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award in Poetry. Perrine lives in Portland, Oregon.

For more information, visit www.jenniferperrine.org or follow Jennifer on Instagram at @JenniferPerrineWrites .
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Jennifer Perrine Imagine it as a cube, a bar, a brick that you can twist and shift like a Tetrimino. Fiddle with the block as you fall down the well with it. Maybe you…moreImagine it as a cube, a bar, a brick that you can twist and shift like a Tetrimino. Fiddle with the block as you fall down the well with it. Maybe you'll find a place where the block fits, becomes useful. Maybe it will pile up with other blocks until, game over, you realize it's time to start something new.

Or: Imagine it as a clog, a clot, a knotty bit of traffic on the road of writing. Use it as an excuse to stop driving yourself so hard, to get out of the car and take a walk. Remember the video for "Everybody Hurts"? Do that. (less)
Jennifer Perrine Being a writer means I've got one more resource for enduring the challenges and suffering that life might throw at any of us. I won't say "poetry save…moreBeing a writer means I've got one more resource for enduring the challenges and suffering that life might throw at any of us. I won't say "poetry saved my life," which feels like an overstatement--my poems have never dragged me from burning buildings or performed emergency surgery or grabbed my wrist at the last minute, just before I fell over a cliff.

Except, of course, they have done all of those things, metaphorically. In the midst of systemic violence and injustice and hateful rhetoric, the process of writing gets the inferno of swirling anger out of my mind and onto the page. It helps to heal whatever fear I've let fester. It pulls me back from the brink of despair.

That's not the best thing, though. The best thing is when someone tells me that something I've written has helped them endure, helped them feel less alone. As Nikki Giovanni says, that's the true revolution. (less)
Average rating: 4.37 · 140 ratings · 23 reviews · 8 distinct worksSimilar authors
The Body is No Machine

4.49 avg rating — 39 ratings — published 2007
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In the Human Zoo

4.03 avg rating — 32 ratings — published 2011 — 2 editions
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Women Write Resistance: Poe...

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4.72 avg rating — 25 ratings — published 2013 — 3 editions
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No Confession, No Mass

4.56 avg rating — 18 ratings — published 2015 — 3 editions
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Again

4.29 avg rating — 14 ratings
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Rattle #68 - Summer 2020 - ...

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4.40 avg rating — 5 ratings
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Willow Springs 58

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3.50 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 2006 — 2 editions
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Beautiful Outlaw

it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating
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Beautiful Outlaw is here!

My fifth collection of poetry, Beautiful Outlaw, was just published by Kelsey Street Press, where it was the inaugural recipient of their QTBIPOC award. Thanks to all the friends and community who cared for me and this book as it came into being.



Getting poetry books into the hands of readers can be a tricky task. If you want to give it a warm welcome into the world, here are a few ways to help:

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Published on August 28, 2025 20:35
The Best We Could Do
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by Thi Bui
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You Like It Darker
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by Stephen King (Goodreads Author)
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A Field Guide to ...
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Jennifer’s Recent Updates

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84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
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Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman
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Poets Square by Courtney Gustafson
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Trying by Chloé Caldwell
Trying: A Memoir
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One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad
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Quotes by Jennifer Perrine  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“as I gazed up

at the full moon rising through the trees and wondered how

another month had passed, and I said out loud to that

satellite—that desolate rock that does nothing but

orbit and reflect light and drive the tides—-I said look

how far I have come, I am still here, I have survived

the worst of it, I woke up laughing last night, when was

the last time that happened
, and when the moon answered back

with its wild silence I realized too late I was

never talking to the moon at all, that when I speak

to an empty place, I am always speaking to you.”
Jennifer Perrine

“I wondered whose voice that was—yours or mine or the great

collective mouth that hums through the cloud and thinks it knows

best how I should grieve, says get over it already
Jennifer Perrine

Topics Mentioning This Author

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What's the Name o...: SOLVED. poetry by female poet, came out circa 2012 11 526 Mar 01, 2019 11:24PM  
“The purpose of poetry is to remind us
how difficult it is to remain just one person,
for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,
and invisible guests come in and out at will.”
Czeslaw Milosz

“Thank everyone who calls out your faults, your anger, your impatience, your egotism; do this consciously, voluntarily.”
Jean Toomer
tags: rabp

“You are not Atlas carrying the world on your shoulder. It is good to remember that the planet is carrying you.”
Vandana Shiva

“Not that I want to be a god or a hero. Just to change into a tree, grow for ages, not hurt anyone.”
Czeslaw Milosz

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Comments (showing 1-5)    post a comment »
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message 5: by Jan

Jan Hi Jennifer,
I just read your review of Brenda Shaughnessy's poetry book So Much Synth. Do you remember whether the book had any bi content? I am looking for poets to encourage to submit their books to the Bi Book Awards. Have you read any other poetry books this year by bi authors and/or with bi content? The author doesn't necessarily have to identify as bi as long as there is bi content.
Thanks,
Jan


Jennifer Jan wrote: "Congratulations, Jennifer, for winning the Bisexual Book Award for Poetry

Thanks, Jan! And thanks for being such a champion of books with bisexual themes, characters, & authors!


message 3: by Jan

Jan Congratulations, Jennifer, for winning the Bisexual Book Award for Poetry, just announced today, for your very beautiful No Confession, No Mass! The award was so well deserved.


Jennifer Jan wrote: "Congratulations, Jennifer, on No Confession, No Massmaking finalist!

http://www.examiner.com/article/fourt..."


Thanks, Jan! I hadn't heard yet, so you were the first to share the news!


message 1: by Jan

Jan Congratulations, Jennifer, on No Confession, No Massmaking finalist!

http://www.examiner.com/article/fourt...


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