Poetry. Ron Padgett has a gift for making poetry that is simultaneously funny and artful. He lays down lines that start as giggles, grow to hearty chuckles, and then give way to wispy thoughts of strange significance. "HOW TO BE PERFECT should remind us of how long Ron Padgett has managed to stay perfectly balanced on a tightrope of irony despite his verbal giddiness and the uproariousness of his imagination. I wish he would loan me his sunglasses for a day or two so I could check out the amazing world according to Padgett" -- Billy Collins.