In Full Velvet

by Jenny Johnson

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 Johnson is a recipient of the 2015 Whiting Writers' Award, and the 2016 Hodder Fellowship at Princeton. She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Genres: Poetry, Queer, LGBT, Gender, 21st Century

72 pages, Hardcover

First published February 14, 2017

Reviews

[Rand]

in the dream

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Hannah Lilly ✨ · Rating 4 out of 5]

The lyricism ateeee also v gay which we love ✨

[Jonathan Tennis · Rating 2 out of 5]

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 latent echo inside you / now there of me, some remnant / of the night we longed to / against the drum of a water tower, / but did it instead again and again / on a bed too small for one.” – p. 45-46 (from the poem Little Apophat)

“Out the window of a speeding car a man yells, Dyke. And a silence bristles / between us, / hot ash about to blow across a paper city. / If you love someone, you must be the guardian of their solitude.” – p. 53 (from the poem Vigil)

[Nancy Zigler · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 be giving this another read.

[Katie Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 perfect poem. I didn't hear her read it there, but the title poem is my favourite. I gave this collection to one of my best friends, who, like Jenny, loves women - but her poetry is for everyone, not only the community of which she is firmly a part. Her images of nature, the way she evokes forests and city bridges, snuggling birds and playing elephants - her delight in the world is evident, even if it is an imperfect and fragile world in which we live.

[Charlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 vibe of a straight-down-the-line natural poetry. As the collection goes on, the natural and the animal eventually morph into more openly memoiristic poems that crystallize the romantic intricacies of lesbian relationships. The movement between these two threads is so well-balanced that you can barely feel it taking you as you dig deeper into this too-short collection, and then it moves back to animal poems by the end of the collection.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 whatever remains of hidden queer lives. She's not doing so alone, either: she summons muses from Larry Levis to Gerard Manley Hopkins to Le Tigre and weaves them together until we can't help but believe it when she writes, "Tonight, as one crowd, we will bridge this choir."

[E · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a little bit to get into this book, but once I did…wow!

At a certain point, with lines like “If secrets are prayers / then maybe bodies // are worth revealing / worth repeating” (from “In Full Velvet”) and “We could be good queers? / An oxymoron we never // longed for” (from “Gay Marriage Poem”), it felt impossible to resist being pulled in by Johnson’s words.

They do a truly fantastic job with language and sound and imagery. There are so many moments I found I’d stop reading—just long enough to jot down some notes—because they are moments I want to come back to again and again.

[Natalie D.C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A reflective, emotional debut collection of poetry that gets at the heart of queer identity, community, and love. A few months ago, I had the privilege of virtually meeting Jenny Johnson and hearing her read some of her works, so I knew this collection of hers wouldn't disappoint. Sensual and oh-so-rich in its verse, each and every poem in this collection is packed with heart and never failed to pull me into its hypnotic language. My favorites from this collection include "Dappled Things," "In Full Velvet," and "In the Dream" - I can't wait to explore more of Johnson's works! <3

[Sandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

if you like finely wrought dramatic performances by Cate Blanchett, you'll probably love this book.

if you are queer and into lyric that at times mystifies you — if you find wonder and awe in the gap between beauty and meaning, between pleasure and certainty over a text — then you will probably love this book.

it is rigorous technique, flawless and sharply defined execution. five stars, 5/5, 100% recommend

[L]

"If secrets are prayers..."
- 'In Full Velvet', pg. 17

"To put one fist deep in compost
just to feel the heat
of matter breaking down."
- 'Dorothy's Trash', pg. 28

"I loved a woman who curated loss. She was a sculptor... I wanted her to craft it [my house] perfectly to scale." 'Souvenirs', pg.35

"If you love someone, you must be the guardian of their solitude."
- 'Vigil', pg. 52

[Leonard · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Carrolet · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Kendra Nuttall · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 out of 5. Pros: tons of bird references. Cons: tons of fish references
Humor aside, I loved the lyricism in these poems. Highlights in the collection for me were "Elegy at Twice the Speed of Sound" and "Gay Marriage Poem."

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genius wow
a Word alchemist
2017 Best Debut Poetry
Might be the Best Poetry Book of 2017

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the language more than any specific line(s) or
poem(s).

[Tallon Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

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

[Gabriel · Rating 4 out of 5]

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_...

[Bri Esposito · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sumptuous and lovely poems about longing and love.

[Alie Gauslow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved it. I finished it in one sitting during my flight today. Super gay. Need more queer poetry in the world like this.

[Cas · Rating 3 out of 5]

first half was a 2.5 second was a 4. I love a hardcover poetry collection though! Sarabande has brilliant designers.

[Jo Reyes-Boitel · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Hallie Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

wowww

[Laura Eppinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gorgeous treat I gave myself when I purchased this collection. I return to it often--a treasure.

[Bowie Rowan · Rating 5 out of 5]

These poems made me smile. Every single one is a delight.

[Again and again and again · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved a few of them. Some I didn’t get. Potentially because I’m not smart enough about poetry 😂 but I loved the queerness and the natural elements. Torn between a 3 and 4

[Katie Powers · Rating 4 out of 5]

First read for a literature class in college and forgot how impressive her writing is — sometimes I read poems and I’m like wow everybody so creative (but fr). Super visceral