The poems in Alan Perry’s collection, The Heart of It, offer us far more than sonic pleasures of stirring poetry — though they do swell with astounding music, too.  These poems, each like a cut diamond, emanate a hard-won wisdom that dwell in the “liminal spaces”, between moments, when Perry knows we are most present.  His wide ranging vision moved from exoplanets to the ordinary magic of watching a washing machine “pulsing dirt out of clothes”.  This is a book to read and cherish over and over, until you have absorbed the most potent lesson: how to widen your eyes to this world we live in, and all the possible worlds beyond.

       — James Crews, author, Unlocking the Heart and Turning Toward Grief