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In Full Velvet
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Sinuous and sensual, the poems of In Full Velvet interrogate the nuances of desire, love, gender, ecology, LGBTQ lineage and community, and the tension between a body’s material limits and the forms made possible by the imagination. Characterized by formal poise, vulnerability, and compassion, Johnson's debut collection is one of resounding generosity and grace.
Jenny Johns ...more
Jenny Johns ...more
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Apr 27, 2016
Rand
marked it as to-read
Honestly, I wanted to like these poems more than I actually did.
This is a beautiful book -- the publisher/imprint is apparently all about making high-quality books, and it's true, the paper is thick and lovely and the cover is soft and beautiful. The poems inside are also pretty wonderful. A little too nature-y for me, because I'm a garbage city slicker, but still lovely.
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Read about this poet in a recent article in Poets & Writers. Was excited to read more but the collection just didn’t work for me. For me, it’s worth reading even if it didn’t work for me as there’s almost always a few that are enjoyable and some great lines hidden in there. Poems I enjoyed: Souvenirs, Spaces, Victory.
“I like to study / not her features exactly, / but all her small perfect shadows. / Her sleeves like swallow’s wings, / the oblong ring she casts / moving down a slide, / some late ...more
“I like to study / not her features exactly, / but all her small perfect shadows. / Her sleeves like swallow’s wings, / the oblong ring she casts / moving down a slide, / some late ...more
Mostly when I read poetry, I remember that I don’t really like it. This was no exception, but it was pretty and there were a couple (Little Apophat, Fish Out Of Water) that I genuinely liked. I’m just biased because it’s not a style of writing I typically enjoy and I really only read it because of its queer themes.
One of the many impressive things about this Jenny Johnson is the structure and organization of the poems in relation to each other here. It's a bit of an underrated aspect of writing a poetry collection, being able to order the poems so that they can flow or even tell a narrative (and doing so without it being so obvious that it's blunt trauma by verse). In In Full Velvet , Johnson opens with a series of poems abound with natural imagery and specifically various fauna, yet you don't get the vi
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Poetry has always been difficult for me - I love it but it's almost never quite what I want it to be. I was lucky enough to be brought to see Jenny Johnson by my boyfriend last weekend at the Word Barn in southern NH, and was blown away by her - performance? sharing? giving? - of her work to us. It was shattering, it was skipping, it was sneaking, and just at any moment when I thought "this poem is not for me" she would use a word, turn a phrase, drop her voice, lilt it up - and it was the perfe
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Where there is
no lineage, no record,
no quantifiable
proof, there are
myths, and where
there are no myths,
there are traces:
In this collection, Jenny Johnson follows Monique Wittig's instruction to "[m]ake an effort to remember. Or, failing that, invent.” Johnson follows the trails of history and nature to locate queer ancestors. She invents worlds where every body is possible and where queer resistance outshines hate. And when there are only traces, she sifts through the euphemisms to reveal what ...more
I've always had trouble reading poetry. I go to it when I realize I need to work harder on my fiction writing, on delivering at a sentence, word, even syllabic level--and usually I end more frustrated than where I started. Now, I can't claim to understand every line of this work, but the writing necessitated my desire to crack it open like a Faberge egg. It has so much love, and rubs so gingerly against nature and our role in it as people, especially when you feel like an outlier/outsider. I'll
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I always feel that I’m missing something when I read poetry...that maybe I’m not quite smart enough to get it. I did enjoy how it felt to read these poems. The language is beautiful and the poems felt very personal/intimate. I most identified with Souvenirs, having more than my share of them.
This is a really neat book. The cover feels like velvet. The print is nice. It's published by Sarabande Books in Louisville, KY, a company that seems to care about making a quality product, and the poems aren't bad either.
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I loved the language more than any specific line(s) or
poem(s).
poem(s).
There are some amazing poems in this collection. I appreciate when the author’s disjointed imagery is linked but felt that some pieces could benefit for lengthening.
Genius wow
a Word alchemist
2017 Best Debut Poetry
Might be the Best Poetry Book of 2017
a Word alchemist
2017 Best Debut Poetry
Might be the Best Poetry Book of 2017
So far, I'll place it 4th behind (in no particular order) Kaveh, sam, and William. I'm referencing this list:
https://www.pw.org/content/the_whole_... ...more
https://www.pw.org/content/the_whole_... ...more
Feb 20, 2018
Tallon Kennedy
rated it
really liked it
Shelves:
2018,
21st-century-nonfiction-memoir-etc
Elegy at Twice the Speed of Sound has immediately become one of my favorite poems of all-time.
"A boom, my dear,
A boom."
8/10 ...more
"A boom, my dear,
A boom."
8/10 ...more
first half was a 2.5 second was a 4. I love a hardcover poetry collection though! Sarabande has brilliant designers.
Honestly, I wanted to like these poems more than I actually did.
Sumptuous and lovely poems about longing and love.
Absolutely loved it. I finished it in one sitting during my flight today. Super gay. Need more queer poetry in the world like this.
As I reveled in the experience of this lovely book, I snagged heart on so many lines. Glad to have this one on my shelves.
stunning
The title of this book refers to furry skin on the antlers of young deer, which most shed as the antlers finish calcifying. The titular poem mentions some whitetails that don’t shed their velvet, seen by hunters as “raggedy-horn freaks” who live “long solitary lives, unweathered / by the rutting season.”
There are moments in this collection that felt too florid for my taste; I appreciated the more everyday, banal poems — about going to the barbershop and not getting gay married. But I enjoy the ani ...more
There are moments in this collection that felt too florid for my taste; I appreciated the more everyday, banal poems — about going to the barbershop and not getting gay married. But I enjoy the ani ...more
One of 2017's best debut books, without a doubt. Johnson's poems weave between poetic formality and cultural colloquialism with deft grace. A book we all need.
...more
This book is gorgeous. Highly recommended.
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