Memory

Luke Johnson's first book Quiver (TRP, 2023) was named a finalist for the California Book Award and finished finalist for prizes such as the Jake Adam York, The Levis and the Vassar Miller Award. Johnson is the co-author of A Slow Indwelling, a call and response project with the poet Megan Merchant (Harbor Editions). You can read more of his work at Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Narrative, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere.

Praise for Distributary"What's the sound of a voice wanting to help/but trapped inside the nets of helping? A man who knows loss like he knows rage, a first skin? In Distributary, Luke Johnson speaks that voice in thick and throbbing language, in lines where sound drives desire into burning. Between frenzy and a brick wall, we find that '. . . loss is a crater / where the living reside.' But we also find pleasure, as Johnson washes us in love, even through the bullets of loss—with water rushing over us and through, over us and through—in these stunning, eloquent poems." —Jan Beatty, author of Dragstripping"In Distributary, Luke Johnson courageously navigates the tumultuous landscapes of generational trauma, grief, and masculinity. Poem by poem, he unearths the past, exploring the weight of familial legacies—especially in the wake of his father's death—against the backdrop of love and hope as he raises a family of his own. Above all, Distributary celebrates renewal. Johnson's astonishing language surprises and satiates us, reminding us of life's inevitable joys. Distributary is more than a book—it's an experience that lingers long after you've turned the final page." —Alexis Sears, author of Out of Order"Stark figurative language lends buoyancy to Luke Johnson's Distributary where the speaker breaks away from the psychic ax blade and halts the centrifugal force of family trauma. In the heart of the book lies a poetic sequence that goes full Deep Image and strips the world down to its most elemental resonant images. These poems are grounded in the physical world, and when you touch these pages, you will get Earth on your fingers." —Jeffrey McDaniel, author of Holidays in the Islands of Grief"Distributary, Luke Johnson's luminous new book, makes the argument that pain, anger, and grief, when distilled into artful truth, have the capacity to connect us with our natural, creaturely selves—and with each other. I particularly admire Johnson's portraits of family life. They're so specific and honest, so attuned to everyday experience, they point the reader toward the idea that we're all connected to a common lineage and broader, communal history. It's rare to find a poetry collection that makes you feel more a part of the world than you were before reading it. Distributary is one of those books." —David Roderick, author of The Americans"Distributary, Luke Johnson's haunting, necessary second collection, employs personal memory as a means of preserving some modicum of goodness and innocence in our fallen world. Meditating on inheritance, Johnson contends with what our parents have passed down while praying hard that we avoid similar transmissions to our children. Though he ultimately knows he cannot stem the damage, Johnson endeavors to mitigate the incessant screaming that punctuates our days, hoping to spare future generations some of the hurt and wreckage we, in this generation, have known." —Iain Haley Pollock, author of All the Possible Bodies"There's something prayer-like in this book of grief and fathers, something holy that smells of the earth in these poems of rage and love. 'Time is made of miniature gears prone to snap or implode' Luke Johnson writes, and these poems are made of those gears, pausing both memory and time, digging toward something timeless and human." —Matthew Olzmann, author of Constellation Route"Luke Johnson's second collection, Distributary, asks time to freeze for a moment. And this pausing is not in the name of forgetting past violences that happen to and around the body, but rather an attempt to survive despite them. Johnson walks us through his moments, holds our hand, lets us know we can survive, too. The memories in this collection collapse in on themselves, repeating. We are left spinning in these memories with 'the rotted oak / [he'd] climb inside / to calm on days /when daddy / found his rifle's / acoustics / pleasing . . . '" —Jason B. Crawford, author of YEET!