Kinesthesia

by Stephanie N. Johnson

"The poems in Kinesthesia are wonderfully personal, familial, quirky and crafty. 'They sleep upright in the throat,' as Stephanie Johnson writes in 'City of Stomach, City of Throat,' and find their way into our blood streams and our night dreams."—Diane Glancy Stephanie Johnson , adept in alternative and complementary medicine, has worked as a birth doula. She speaks, both tender and surreal, in a choir of women's voices to women, healers, bodyworkers, aficionados of mythology, and to anyone seeking spiritual solace in the natural world or interested in understanding and healing the body/mind split.

90 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2010

Reviews

[Anatoly Molotkov · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Washed the wound-to-be, the wound covering a tunnel under the skin,/ a cave where pain trickled, crystallized// stalagmites - arrow-ended pressing into my hip bones/ where the great weight had been dropped." A lyrical, conceptual collection by Stephanie N. Johnson, Kinesthesia alternates between poignant meditations on family, love, hunger, and purpose - and surreal sketches placed in a world of twisted anatomies.

[Cheri Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wild and earthy poems that often use the fiction-y techniques that I love to run into in poetry: direct addresses (from "Blunt Helix": "Sister, I don't want to shock you,/but I have more family secrets"); portraits of characters (from "Nona's Hands: "....Gambling hands./ Splitting wood with hands./ Bit by dog hands./ Bootlegger in bathtub hands...."); and persona poems (from "Size Matters/1": "Mama measured my brain after school today. She took the whole thing out of my skull and set it in the kitchen sink.") These poems are exciting, stirring, and incredibly evocative.

[Hayley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stephanie N. Johnson's poetry collection, Kinesthesia, is a powerhouse to say the least. With lyrical charm, Johnson weaves the names of women family members into verse. These poems sing of what it is to be a woman - a mother (a mama), a sister, a grandmother (a nona). "Spin Cycle" - collected in Kinesthesia's first section - is just one poem where Johnson addresses the identity of women: "the librarian said people don't exercise enough, especially women" (21). "Spin Cycle" depicts the speaker interacting presumably with her mother. "Waterweeds" depicts a woman working in a barbershop interacting with a man. The poem goes on to introduce grandmother with "the rumor of her life" (24). Here, two generations are threaded into one poem, uniquely grounded by experiences with men and the settings of a barbershop and the lovely imagery of life near water. Johnson’s poetry addresses the various identities of women and generations in not only content, but also in form. The poems of Kinesthesia are not told entirely in free-verse, but also in the form of prose poems. The prose poems often stand out as the poems where Johnson’s speaker addresses the Mama character of the first and second sections of the collection. By parts three and four, the prose poems have bloomed into first and second person narratives. This can be thought of as the transition from girlhood to womanhood. Johnson’s speaker no longer relies on just “Mama says,” but instead has asserted her own identity, and the foreground for Johnson’s poems. New Rivers Press continues to publish quality, evocative poetry collections. Kinesthesia’s attention to sparkling language, female identities, and beautiful imagery make it one of NRP’s stand-out publications.

[Samantha Woods · Rating 4 out of 5]

For centuries, society has reduced women down to little more than body parts – a common and effective practice in advertising. Stephanie N. Johnson explores this dissection of the human body in her book Kinesthesia, a collection of poems. Whereas society’s dissection lies in largely superficial streams of thought, Johnson’s attempt at human dissection is full of harsh truth tempered by emotional depth.
Each poem in the collection links to the overall theme - dissection of the human body - , whether due to referencing a specific body part or focusing completely on one particular feature. Johnson employs related subject matter and recurring characters in such a way as to provide the reader with a sense that there is an overarching plot. As such, when reading, it seems as if Kinesthesia is less like a collection of related poems and more like a novel.
Though at times the book’s design makes it difficult to follow the progression of a poem (as seen with “Waterweeds” beginning on page 23 and ending on page 24), the noteworthiness of many pieces in the collection redeems the minor flaw. One such poem, “Finding Worms” on page 33, discusses childhood misconceptions about puberty. Johnson does a wonderful job capturing the child’s voice. Another excellent piece is “Geology” (page 39). Johnson’s diction and imagery in this poem convey a restrained, yet intense, tide of emotion which aides in character development.
Overall, Kinesthesia is a fantastic collection that ripples with emotion and challenges the significance (or, in some cases, insignificance) of female body parts.

[Paytonberger]

Stephanie N Johnson’s book of poetry titled Kinesthesia is more than a book about the position and movement of body parts. It is a lot more. It is a collection of the position and movement of peoples’ real daily experiences and life. The reader gets the feeling that the narrator is stretching out into the world and understanding the position. The poems are about movement.
Connections to the narrator’s mother form a strong feeling in the poetry. The mother, simply known as “Mama”, aids the narrator in growth. Helping the narrator into the movement and positions of the world. The mother teaches the narrator how to “open [her] ribcage” and helps her take her brain out of her skull. I can assume the narrator is growing. There is a strong feeling of what it means to be a woman. Young boys speculate if a woman’s blood contains little worms and so does the reader. When woman get old they can buy new hips and a poem helps deal with this aging dilemma.
By the end of the book the reader feel as though they have gotten inside the narrator. They have become a part of her and they have grown with her. The reader develops the sense of position and movement that they can hopefully bring into their own world.
The size and cover art of the book do wonders. The book’s design keeps it simple and appealing. Each section is introduced by a quote from another author and helps set up the subsequent poems.

[Caitlin Fox]

If you took Toni Morrison’s slightly out-of-sync sort of magical realism and applied it to poetry instead of prose, you would get the poems of Stephanie N. Johnson. They are woman-centric, they are body-centric, and they are so rich in imagery that when a poem lays out the detaching of one’s tired feet for composting, the reader can both imagine the literal detaching while still being sucked down into the underlying meanings. Meanings that are not always readily visible, they may require a sort of meditation, similar to the Fitzgerald translations of ancient poet Omar Khayyam. Johnson’s poetry seems to burrow into the brain, resonating in the subconscious, waiting for the right spark to make you think “Oh, so that is what she was getting at,” days or even weeks after your last reading. Poetry that sticks to your ribs. This collection particularly sings to female readers, emphasizing the bonds between mother, grandmother, sister, and all the parts of the female body. It eases through the transitions of womanhood, making you wish your mother’s face was made of wax or your Nona would make meatloaf again, or that you could become the mother of wax or the grandmother in the kitchen with her multitalented hands, passing by all the awkward phases and shifts that come with growth and change. Unfortunately, the best most of us can do is to read Johnson’s poetry time and time again, and hope that it eases the way.