In the title poem of Life is Perfect, Amy Small-McKinney, tells her daughter “we have to love what we are given – /the molecules or atoms that stabilize into ourselves.” This is poetry that is atomic. Each poem quietly explodes on the page till you’re watching a sparkler unfold its clusters of stars, so many linguistic excitements going on at once, you grieve each poem’s end but can’t wait for the next one to ignite. But the poetry here is atomic in another sense as well; it embraces life at its most essential, perfect in its imperfections: the tent kept in the living room, huge, questionable birds, Lemon Boy Hybrids, Bloodroot, unruly grass, the voices of the Rift Valley, of Merewala, of Bombay, Aunt Henrietta’s Art Nouveau – Jugendstil, massive burritos, stuffed with “seasonings we haven’t tasted before.” In Life is Perfect we are offered spices we haven’t tasted before, a feast we will never forget, poems whose adventures make us braver than we thought we could be – and wiser too!