Fatal: Poems

by Kimberly Johnson

Fatal reflects on the “small and common” events that shock and wound us, contemplating how we can bear human care, knowing the risks. In Fatal , her most personal collection yet, Kimberly Johnson reflects on ways in which we are imperiled, this life dealing out even in its “small and common” events so many shocks and wounds that we are marked by our having lived it.  These poems explore our enduring commitment to care for our small, costly holdings―all those vital, fatal loves that make us vulnerable―and contemplates the question of how we can bear the caring, knowing the risk.

Genres: Poetry

82 pages, Paperback

Published May 3, 2022

About the author

Kimberly Johnson is professor of English at Brigham Young University.

Reviews

[Jesse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another collection by Kimberly Johnson, another confirmation that she is my favorite working poet.

Johnson's clear influence of the 17th-century Metaphysical poets—one section here is literally crafted from highlighted words in Donne's "Batter my Heart, Three-person'd God"—just endlessly delights & surprises me; I love that her work allows me to savor this tradition's complex wordplay, clever conceits & juxtapositions, & all the lovely alliteration without requiring one to wade through grand religiosity & piety to God (which is not to say that the spiritual is not always whispering around the edges of Johnson's poems). Here this ecstatic style is put in service of illuminating the quotidian, & elevating familiar emotions & sensations to a kind of blistering transcendence.

This particular collection, her most recent, is rended through with grief in a way her previous work has not been. Published the same year as the passing of her husband from cancer, it is structured by sense of loss & impending death. And yet Johnson never loses sight of beauty even in devastation—which only makes the grief feel all the more overwhelming.

"I've read the news: daily outrages
Against the human, ruin in triage,
Against which shocks what is the fall of a tree?,
My life is so small and common I am ashamed
To feel it as a risk. And yet--.

All my care

Sudden uprooted and open to weather,
Dumbfounded I at my unhomely door remain,
Keyring in my fist a plug of cordite,
Lock a latent spark, whole world ready to ignite" (from "Fall")

[Benjamin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I come back to this collection again and again. Each poem is an individual beauty, and the collection as a whole is a triumph of craft and a joy to read

[Zuska · Rating 5 out of 5]

So glad that someone at Otto Bookstore positioned this collection of poems to catch the eye!
Each poem is itself a well-crafted meditation on the perils of just living this life. All together, they form a powerful collection that kept me turning page after page - even as I wanted to savor what I had just read, I wanted to read more.

Each poem has a single word title, each word beginning with the letter F. The first poem is Fall, and it is preceded with a reproduction of an extract from the CDC actuarial table for Deaths From Each Cause, By 5-Year Age Groups: United States, 2001 - in this case, Fall, Unspecified. There are several other such extracts throughout the book and to me at least they read as a kind of mournful found poem. They each tell some kind of story, as does each poem.

One of my favorite pairings (because each tells such a strong story) is the extract for Firework Discharge and the poem Fire-work.

Perhaps my two favorite poems, though, are Foley Catheter (which speaks of love, intimacy, and impending loss) and Folio, which draws this wisdom from the folio version of King Lear:
“A fervor of faith that the folio knows/To deliver/The one unrecoverable blow:
“Come bereave, come bruise, but of all the wounds/We suffer, hope/Will kill us every time.”

Okay, and the last poem too, F-word:
“How foolish I for fretting after silver/Linings, as if loss were not the principle/Of love…You are dear, Dear/One, because of the expense - in fear,/In wakefulness, in all the unrecover-/Able tenders that account my faith.”
It’s a gorgeous sonnet.

Such a wonderful collection.

[Terresa Wellborn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Johnson begins this collection with this:

"death cannot harm me
more than you have harmed me,
my beloved life."
-Louise Gluck, "October"

All the poems herein are entitled with a word beginning with the letter "F." Interpersed between the poems are charts listing fatal activities and their statistics, including Fall(ing), Fallopian Tube, Fatigue, and Firework discharge, to name a few.

[Will Haslam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why aren’t more people raving about this book?

These poems are so erudite and gutting and linguistically sly. So many quotable lines. Will be following everything Johnson puts out.

[Kylie Lay · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very beautiful book, but I found many of the poems hard to decode. Beautifully written, however, and carefully crafted by the author.