A review by tirragen
In Full Velvet by Jenny Johnson

reflective

4.5

“We alter / nothing. We alter everything.”

Jenny Johnson traces a legacy of butchness throughout history and the natural world, and she writes of butch desire with incredibly clarified, sensual seriousness. I really enjoyed some of the formal elements in Johnson’s verse, and I thought it was a very sexy volume. “Severe” and “Vigil” were standout poems to me. I can definitely see the Gerard Manley Hopkins and Larry Levis lineage!