Dragons: Poems

(Hardback)

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Tough and tissue soft, loose blossoms open for a while to sense, whatever slant of daylight comes, then close to cold in a slow wince. Dragons is a sonorous, sensual collection of poems from Devin Johnston, "one of the finest craftsmen of verse we have" (Michael Autrey, Booklist). Attentive to both the physical world and our place within it, his arresting images of nature and human life ring with quiet power. An elegy for a ten-year-old hen; a fourth grader seeing a fox, his "fur waistcoat immaculate"; the sound of neighbors arguing set against the "pallid flames" of the setting sun. The scenes that Johnston presents come together to form a resonant, restrained meditation on life's journey and "the feeling of time."

Reviews

"[Dragons] moves with quiet elegance. His contemplative tone plumbs the depth of the natural world--and its humor, too." --Ron Charles, The Washington Post

"[Dragons] explores the present and past with effortless rhyme and gentle music . . . These poems are well wrought and moving, each filled with a 'mild expectancy' that connects the mundane with the awe that gives life meaning." --Publishers Weekly

Author Bio

Born in 1970, Devin Johnston spent his childhood in North Carolina. He is the author of six previous books of poetry and two books of prose, including Creaturely and Other Essays. He works for Flood Editions, an independent publishing house, and teaches at Saint Louis University, in Missouri, where he lives.