use Modern::Perl;
use Data::Dump qw /dump/;

my @array;

for my $count (1 .. 4) {
    my %hash;
    $hash {first} = $count . ' first';
    $hash {second} = $count . ' second';
    push @array, \%hash;
}

say dump(\@array);

##</code><code>##

[
  { first => "1 first", second => "1 second" },
  { first => "2 first", second => "2 second" },
  { first => "3 first", second => "3 second" },
  { first => "4 first", second => "4 second" },
]