Melissa Morelli Lacroix explores the love and longing, loss and pain, grief and healing found in the music of Frédéric Chopin, Clara Schumann, and Claude Debussy in a series of poetic cycles that respond to each composer's work. Lacroix writes with her ear finely tuned to the music of death and decay, to the harmonies and discords of music, nature, and human desire. Always, in A Most Beautiful Deception, we find the chords of love and devotion being torn apart by the deterioration of the body. Lacroix uses her research into the composers' lives to add layers and nuance, thus creating a complex triangle between the reader, the music, and the poet. Woven almost imperceptibly into these accounts of three composers and their respective fights against the decay of the body and the mind, lies the thread of the poet's own relationships and loss.
Melissa Morelli Lacroix is a writer, teacher, and editor who lives and works in Edmonton. She has degrees in creative writing from Lancaster University and the University of Alberta as well as a certificate in Translation Studies. Melissa teaches piano and writing.
"The wonder of Melissa's poetry is that so many narratives reaped from obscurity and antiquity can be so moving to a contemporary audience. You don't need to be an art historian or a music scholar to appreciate this work. You just need to love poetry." David Carpenter, Writer & Editor
"...Melissa Morelli Lacroix uses music as a diving board to jump into a much deeper pool. One where we all swim. These compelling poems contain an orchestrated lament, a poetic howl with a cultured voice.... "A Most Beautiful Deception" talks about the nature of creativity, love, immortality and so on. Lacroix does this with a wicked good sense of humour, a gallant charm. Melissa Morelli Lacroix is quite fearless and tackles many demons most lesser mortals would leave undisturbed. Not Lacroix. She brings humour, warmth and intelligence to every dark omen lurking in the shadows. Lacroix is not hesitant to turn her rapier eyes on herself with equal vigor. What fine poetry." http://bit.ly/1tmghx7 -- Michael Dennis -- Michael Dennis's blog, 20140820
Melissa Morelli Lacroix crafts poems responding to the complex negotiations of love... A Most Beautiful Deception recounts death and suffering woven through with the irreplaceable moments of life and the sweet sting of memories. Reaching to the early nineteenth century, the poems weave lives of artists, mourners, and admirers while modelling the composers' musical scores in form.... Although emphasizing degeneration and death--physical, social, psychological--the poems maintain vibrancy, often crystallizing sound, light, colour, and emotion.... Despite its complexity and range, Deception is remarkably accessible, managing to humanize musical giants and to harmonize life's glory and brutality while avoiding sentimentalism. Tina Trigg, Canadian Literature, Spring 2015
