JIM JOHNSTONE
104 pages. Coach House Books.
there’s no reason / to stay here // if we just // keep going / through the motions.
I never really know what’s going to happen when I sit down to open, read a new poetry collection.
Often, I’ll expect to skim, jump forward, “where’s the good stuff?”
Last night, the lake rose to meet me as I crossed.
Rarer still to be swallowed whole from the start.
Will we make it to the other side? Will I?
Then I remember, we live on a lake where I’ve stood beside a bandana-ed poet on their rooftop, arm across shoulder, looking out, we cross intersections, sans skateboard, point to things, blossoms, murals, markers, vanishing signs of places, homes destined for landfill.
Do you remember? / I wasn’t alone.
Poet, Jim Johnstone has always been challenging the page, at times (he admits) with an impulsive need to explain. In The King ofTerrors he simply says, “Look here.”
And we do.
At the man in love. His fears. “I’m not ready to leave.” The knife. Dreams in flight. Confessions. Lies. Truths. Abiding friendships. Prior. Loss. Elegies. “Every cell /// hurts” brothers, fathers, family, exes, the poet places us directly in the waves with him, “until we’ve reached the deepest point / the point at which we exhale and look up — “
The future was king until / it stopped delivering
Jim. To see you, read you, here. Still. Always. Delivering. Unsparing, honest writing so fine my core is shaken, my breath returns. Thanks for this lifeline, your latest “terrors,” your passionate love for the work. Congrats on this hard won beauty.
KIRBY 