John Perrault is a lawyer, teacher, poet, and balladeer. Over the years he has performed his songs and poems in numerous venues throughout New England, including The New England Folk Festival, The Maine Festival, The Prescott Park Arts Festival, Chautauqua, Writers' Day for the New Hampshire Writers' Project, The Maine Writers Conference, The Seacoast Writers Conference, Passim, The Stone Church, and countless libraries, schools and coffee houses. He is the author of Jefferson's Dream, The Ballad of Louis Wagner and other New England Stories in Verse, and Here Comes the Old Man Now. He was poet laureate of Portsmouth, NH, 2003 - 2005.
A road can't be as sad as a shoe is sad
when a shoe can't read.
I can't read either.
...
Why is everything I do in my life like a boomerang?
I throw the paper airplane out the window
and the wind sends it back.
I spit against the wind.
...
I ran into an old time sailor, up on Market Street;
We had a cup of coffee, his last name was McLees;
He fought in the Pacific, on Portsmouth submarines;
I asked about the Squalus, this is what he told me.
...