Stella Johnston's poems in Without a Witness invite the reader into widely different places, from the nightmarish landscape of a morphine hallucination, to the last few moments of a Gary Cooper western, to the bedside of a dying Roman emperor in a field tent in Persia. The acute perception--whether one of pain, joy, grief, remorse, or relief--figures in every poem's attempt to hold onto something essential. At times, moments of loss become...
Related Subjects
Poetry