To
be averse, to turn one's eyes
away, is an act that chills,
suggesting not only irrevocable
but also unforeseeable consequence.
And what we do not see, we so
often fear. In ancient Rome ,
rites of aversion were performed
as sacred rituals. But, as Johnston
explains, such "rituals involved
not the invocation of heavenly
spirits, but the placation of
ghosts." While the poems in this
collection assay a very broad
range of subjects, Johnston demonstrates
in all of them an awareness of
what enormous challenges constitute
the turning toward--or away from--the
many faces of experience. And
at the core of this work is an
astute, passionate, empathic
examination of our use of language
as an active placation of ghosts. "[T]hese
forms are only forms // fulfilled,
as you are now // no more than
this-a tone." Paradoxically,
Johnston demonstrates the ways
that these ghosted forms nonetheless
can offer a music intensely,
eerily immediate. Here the breadth
and complexity of subject matter
and allusion, the deftly drawn
images (some in full relief,
others sketched in minimal silhouette
against a sharply contrasting
background), the surprising alliances
and complications of emotion
and idea, all make it impossible
for a reader to turn his or her
eyes away.
Devin
Johnston is the author of a previous
book of poetry entitled
Telepathy (Paper
Bark Press, 2001) as well as
a book of criticism,
Precipitations:
Contemporary American Poetry as Occult Practice (Wesleyan
University Press, 2002). From
1995-2000, Johnston served
as poetry editor for
Chicago Review,
and with Michael O'Leary, he
now directs a small press called
Flood Editions.
Raised in North Carolina, he
currently lives in Saint Louis,
Missouri, where he teaches
at Saint Louis University.
Praise for Aversions
"Johnston
takes the title of his new collection
from the rite that ancient Romans
performed to placate their dead.
His is a book of hauntings: deceased
loved ones, childhood bullies,
ancient poets, and ideal selves
all ghost these pages at one
time or another. But ghosting's
not so much the subject matter
as the formal method. In poem
after poem Johnston turns away
from the world at hand and moves
into a kind of hushed borderland,
even as he redirects our attention
to the here and now…. His
poems are dignified by deftness
and quietude, but they’re
also great feats of enlargement:
they act as conduits, allowing
the past and the present to replenish
each other. Large also are the
pleasures they give their readers."
--Peter Campion,
Poetry Magazine, March
2006
"perfected, 'probing
and severe' intellectual music
of Devin Johnston's new
Aversions ."
--Maureen
McLane,
Chicago Tribune,
Dec 26, 2004
"By turns enigmatic,
insightful, and lyrical, Aversions
offers a body of poetry that
is subtle and almost visual in
its passionate employment of
language."
-
-James A. Cox,
The
Poetry Shelf, Small Press Book
Watch, Midwest
Book Review.
