Wild Things: Poems

Consorting with myth, literary lineages, politics, pop culture, and more, these poems engage and surprise. Gendered roles and dusty archetypes are toppled by swift kicks, delivered with tragicomic wit. Persephone goes shopping, Medusa grooms for a blind date, Barbie gets bawdy. A chorus of crucible figures lead us through poems at once raucous, layered, and tender. They discover freedom for the salvaged self, compassion for the marginalized, and condemnation of the brutal. ~Willa Carroll, author of Nerve Chorus

Wild Things—Johnston’s first and wholly distinctive chapbook—opens by citing the initial lines of Adrienne Rich’s iconic poem “Diving into the Wreck.” This decision makes sense: an important aspect of Wild Things is the reclamation and reframing of myths and narratives where women and non-human females find ways to confront and deflate oppression. But Wild Things is so much more than this. Always intelligent and in some cases devastating, Johnston’s best poems assert themselves with deadpan force. ~Tony Leuzzi, Meditation Archipelago