Ghost River

Kris Johnson is from America’s Washington state but has lived in the UK since 2007. She received her MA and PhD in Creative Writing from Newcastle University where she has also taught and worked as a researcher. In 2019, she was awarded a Developing Your Creative Practice grant from Arts Council England. Her poems have been published in journals and anthologies, including Ambit, Hallelujah for 50ft Women (Bloodaxe Books, 2015), Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Northwest, and Poetry London. Her debut pamphlet, Skinny Dip, was published in 2022 by Enchiridion. Her first book-length collection, Ghost River, is published by Bloodaxe in 2023.

Kris Johnson's Ghost River is a book full of water – from the beautiful and dangerous lakes from the landscape of childhood to the waterways mapped by George Vancouver in the late 1700s. Mapping – of space, place and connection – is abundant in these poems, which explore family history, birth and motherhood with extraordinary and tender precision of language. The natural world rises through Johnson's writing, both in real manifestations and as metaphor, and the landscape of the Pacific Northwest forms the backbone of this collection, which is both wonderful and full of wonder.

• 11 Bodies of Water13 Rainier 14 Lake Americana15 Yellow Jackets16 Skinny Dip17 The Desiccation19 What I meant when I said goodnight20 The Doe22 He Is Risen23 Nisqually Delta Blue24 Ghost River27 BluePASSAGE35 Theoretical Geographers36 V is for Vancouver37 The principled process of deduction38 Church39 Vancouver, dreaming40 Pseudotsuga menziesii41 Kulshan42 Rainier43 Having considered with impartiality the excellencies & deficiencies of the land44 The burial rituals of the inhabitants45 In the name of, and for, His Britannic Majesty, His Heirs and successors46 Your America47 Passage48 The death of George Vancouver49 I dream I am held50 Indivisible51 In the Discovery sloop of war52 George Vancouver, you are not my father55 Myth56 We Have Kissed the Four-legged Gods Goodnight57 Lunar Distances59 Corona60 Cottonwood61 The Time of Lace62 American Mustard63 Cast of an Irish Deer64 None of us is where we ought to be65 As ash falls on my mother’s garden66 What you hold67 Tectonics68 Tahoma69 Northwest Passage71 Gather72 Notes