Durable Goods by Gordon Johnston

(1 customer review)

$14.99

 

“Whether prayerful or analytical, full of joy or touched with terror, the voice of this poet always gives us what the best poetry delivers: a richness in its textures and a close attention to the kind of concrete details of life that, in the words of Flannery O’Connor, “make actual the mystery of our position on earth.” This is a strong collection, long anticipated and a pleasure to have in hand.”

–Judson Mitcham, Poet Laureate of Georgia, 2012-2019

 

The church house and home life are not far off in Gordon Johnston’s poems, and the words of the prophets are timbre to his thought. Emotion ties the poet to the family. Parents and kids make their pronounced appearances, whether before a final departure or in the daily life of the family. Johnston reminds us that it is not a failure of art or of the imagination to love the world. In a particular exercise of ornithology and trope of American poetry, the poet offers this praise: “What a life to find this early in the morning” as he examines the oddity of bird behavior. Rich turns of phrase prove his love for language, as in his poem “Lent” when he describes “the black goodness of the gone” for the past. “Ties,” “Canoe,” and “Bird Calendar” – it is good to see these poems again in one place, which justifiably praises the world, “Things of the Earth,” as he says, and from Proverbs, too, we are reminded, where “any bitter thing is sweet.”

— Kevin Cantwell, author of One of Those Russian Novels and Something Black in the Green Part of Your Eye

 

 

 

 

Category:

Description

Durable Goods

by Gordon Johnston

$14.99, paper

978-1-64662-415-7

2021

Durable Goods, poem by poem, finds lasting value in ordinary daily acts and objects — shaving with an inherited safety razor, packing a backpack for a wilderness trek, listening to Neal Young on a cassette worn to the brink of uselessness, answering a toddler daughter’s questions about air. There are letter poems to writer friends composed along trails in the Rockies, appreciations of the crooked, eternally unraveling beauties of river rapids and of the canoes that cooperate with them. By turns boyish and battle-scarred — “For forty years,” one poems says, “I have been fifteen” — the voice is this collection is that of a man listening to his life, leaning toward whatever durable good he can come across next.

Gordon Johnston is author of the poetry chapbook Gravity’s Light Grip (Perkolator Press) and co-author of Ocmulgee National Monument: A Brief History with Field Notes (Mercer University Press). His poetry collection Scaring the Bears is forthcoming from Mercer University Press in March, 2020. Johnston’s poems, stories, and essays have appeared in The Georgia Review, Southern Poetry Review, and other journals and in many anthologies. He also makes clay pages – poems written in clay and wood-fired by Roger Jamison onto stoneware pages. A former daily news reporter, Johnston teaches creative writing and contemporary literature at Mercer University.

1 review for Durable Goods by Gordon Johnston

  1. Shervette (verified owner) –

    This collection reminds me of why I cherish poetry more than any other genre. The language. The tribute to our lush lexicon is so beautiful in Durable Goods. Ouzel, Copse, Sodden. These are new words for me, but Johnston doesn’t write as if he’s thumbing through a thesaurus; he writes as if he carefully, lovingly unearthed this gems in order to add sheen and weight to the imagery. Poetry is known to offer insight about ordinary things and these poems do just that. I find something different each time I read one. Thank you for this gift.

Add a review

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related products