Lucky, by Amy Watkins

Poetry, chapbook, 29 pages, from Bottlecap Press. Amy Watkins grew up with the cactus and armadillos in the central Florida scrub, a homeschooled kid with an old-time religion, a penchant for books and the fiddle, and a dream of owning her own Nintendo. In Lucky, Watkins tells a story of an unusual late-80s childhood with humor and an unforgiving eye for detail, sparing neither the sweetness nor the disappointment of family love. Each poem is an answer to a prompt from Facebook’s “Did You Know” widget, innocuous questions that become risky when answered honestly: “A toy I always wanted but never had,” “One thing my dad always told me,” “If I could bring one person back to life…” The past, like the rural Florida landscape, is beautiful and dangerous. Amy Watkins is the oldest child of a nurse and a carpenter. As a kid, she dreamed of being a doctor, an artist, and a contestant on Star Search. She became a writer instead. She is the author of the chapbooks Wolf Daughter (Sundress Publications) and Milk & Water (Yellow Flag Press). She lives in Orlando with her husband and daughter.