Recent Comment from Comstock Reveiw:  Portsmouth (NH) Poet-Laureate John Perrault is the author of Here Comes the Old Man Now (Oyster River Press, 2005), one of 2005's best poetry collections, filled with wit, wonder, and written with a fine lyric gift.  These wide-ranging, affirmative, heartfelt poems sing their truths, bring sheer delight.  Highly recommended.

From Poet Betsy Sholl, author of Don't Explain (U. of Wisconsin Press), and Coastal Bop (Oyster River Press):

John Perrault has an eye for the way daily life can become suddenly luminous, and an ear--an unerring ear--for vivid and precise language, for the nuances that shift such language into song.  He is equally adept at free and formal verse, converting his rich insights into delicate lyrics of desire, regret and awe.  Whether he's talking about family or his New England coastal landscape, matters of physical health or travels to distant lands, we can trust that this poet is willing to "tread in the dark between waves, waiting for whatever it is" that will "open to us underneath our lives and speak."

From The Midwest Book Review:  ...all in all a great work reflecting our journey through life....A work to be shared and a work to be cherished.

From Elizabeth Antalek in The Wire (6/01/05):  ...The book is divided into four parts introduced by epigraphs.  The first, from a French troubadour, serves its purpose admirably, setting the tone for what follows.  "It is worthless to write a line/if the song proceed not from the heart," goes the translation, and Perrault clearly heeds this counsel in the 14 poems about his family that comprise the first section.  In poems about his parents, such as "Here Comes the Old Man Now" and "Airing Out the Upstairs," the theme is not just of their passage into old age and death, but of the poet recognizing his advancement into their vacated roles and spaces:  "...I swear/it's his smell on this neck.  His sweat running down these arms."

From Darryl Cauchon in Foster's Sunday Citizen (6/05/05): ..a strong follow-up to The Ballad of Louis Wagner and other New England Stories in Verse...(t)here seems to be something for everyone in Here Comes the Old Man Now.  This book is better when read slowly, taking time to ponder the true or hidden meanings stashed away in each (poem).  

From Becky Rule in the Herald Sunday (6/19/05):  ...John Perrault--just finishing up his term as Portsmouth poet laureate--offers the earthy (and by that I mean connected to the earth, conscious of life cycles and, particularly, mortality) Here Comes the Old Man Now.

From Josh Bodwell in the York County Coast Star (7/14/05):  ...It's evident from Here Comes the Old Man Now that whether John Perrault is up a ladder painting his farmhouse, out in a rowboat with the ghost of his father, or in an old oak chair in the courtroom, he has the heart and vision of a poet--open to receive the many blessings of the everyday.

From Steve Sherman in The Keene Sentinel (8/21/05):  John Perrault begins his book of poetry Here Comes the Old Man Now with the haunting title poem that confronts deep human interiors.  Perrault writes the powerful line, "He doesn't look so old now that he is dead."  The first six heart-wrenching poems alternate focus between father and mother....In the last section...Perrault puts together the 14-line "Trip," so big in scope and ambiance, so compact in deliberate, evocative words, that the appetite for satisfaction and wanting more share each other.

From Dana Wilde in the Bangor Daily News (10/17/05):  ...Perrault's poems also seem authentic in their treatment of intensely personal material....His lyrics are shaped from standard postwar forms that owe their irregular lines and speech-like rhythms--as well as their sometimes standalone imagery--largely to William Carlos Williams....(T)here's no mistaking the down-to-earth thought or feeling he intends to convey.

From John Michael Albert in Animus, #16:  ....Each poem rests so lightly on the page, the reader falls into it almost effortlessly....But the greatest gift Perrault possesses is his gift to make a serious point through gentle, often self-effacing, humor...

From Claire Hersom in Off the Coast, Jan. 2006:  Perrault's work is a clear and precise, well-organized, thought-out book of poetry that twists and wraps the reader into its intimacy through image and language.  Its energy, its folklore tone; its deliberate construction is so well hidden in an apparently non-deliberate effort, he achieves the most delightful ruse; hiding exquisite depth behind sparse word.