
Distributary Volume 38
Poems
Luke Johnson(Author)
Texas Review Press
Published on 30. September 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
100 pages
978-1-68003-426-4 (ISBN)
Description
Distributary picks up where the speaker from Quiver left off and delves deeper in that speaker's concerns and fears around fatherhood, cultural violence and his daughter's illness. It is a book of sirens and ghosts, of time collapse. How many moments tangle and spark in the waking moments of our lives. It houses a grainy melancholia, paradigms of grief. Houses hope.
Reviews / Votes
"What's the sound of a voice wanting to help/but trapped inside the nets of helping? A man who knows loss like he knows rage, a first skin? In Distributary, Luke Johnson speaks that voice in thick and throbbing language, in lines where sound drives desire into burning. Between frenzy and a brick wall, we find that '. . . loss is a crater / where the living reside.' But we also find pleasure, as Johnson washes us in love, even through the bullets of loss-with water rushing over us and through, over us and through-in these stunning, eloquent poems." - Jan Beatty, author of Dragstripping"In Distributary, Luke Johnson courageously navigates the tumultuous landscapes of generational trauma, grief, and masculinity. Poem by poem, he unearths the past, exploring the weight of familial legacies-especially in the wake of his father's death-against the backdrop of love and hope as he raises a family of his own. Above all, Distributary celebrates renewal. Johnson's astonishing language surprises and satiates us, reminding us of life's inevitable joys. Distributary is more than a book-it's an experience that lingers long after you've turned the final page." - Alexis Sears, author of Out of Order
"Stark figurative language lends buoyancy to Luke Johnson's Distributary where the speaker breaks away from the psychic ax blade and halts the centrifugal force of family trauma. In the heart of the book lies a poetic sequence that goes full Deep Image and strips the world down to its most elemental resonant images. These poems are grounded in the physical world, and when you touch these pages, you will get Earth on your fingers."
- Jeffrey McDaniel, author of Holidays in the Islands of Grief
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Huntsville
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 213 mm
Width: 137 mm
Thickness: 10 mm
Weight
249 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-68003-426-4 (9781680034264)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Luke Johnson's first book Quiver (TRP, 2023) was named a finalist for the California Book Award and finished finalist for prizes such as the Jake Adam York, The Levis and the Vassar Miller Award. Johnson is the co-author of A Slow Indwelling, a call and response project with the poet Megan Merchant (Harbor Editions). You can read more of his work at Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Narrative, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere.
Content
Author's Note
America
What I mean when I say water
Like Ruin
Witching Stick
What I mean when I say God
Malignant
I've been told to write about anything
Chimera
O Mother, The Music: With a Nod to Terrance Hayes
To the therapist who says it's time to move on
Distributary
Divining
Carbon Pressure
Fevered Clove: With a Nod to Brigit Pegeen Kelly
Notes On Time Collapse
?
Memory
?
May 24th,2023
May 24th,2022
It has been so hard to write
Boy Fury
Olivia Rodrigo, Van Gogh, This Viscous Light
Rupture
Tether
St. Veronica
Sweetheart
After The Funeral
Beetroot
DoppelgAEnger
Dagger: With a Nod to Phil Levine
On the first anniversary of my father's death, I
Bless The Mouth
Acknowledgments
About the Author
America
What I mean when I say water
Like Ruin
Witching Stick
What I mean when I say God
Malignant
I've been told to write about anything
Chimera
O Mother, The Music: With a Nod to Terrance Hayes
To the therapist who says it's time to move on
Distributary
Divining
Carbon Pressure
Fevered Clove: With a Nod to Brigit Pegeen Kelly
Notes On Time Collapse
?
Memory
?
May 24th,2023
May 24th,2022
It has been so hard to write
Boy Fury
Olivia Rodrigo, Van Gogh, This Viscous Light
Rupture
Tether
St. Veronica
Sweetheart
After The Funeral
Beetroot
DoppelgAEnger
Dagger: With a Nod to Phil Levine
On the first anniversary of my father's death, I
Bless The Mouth
Acknowledgments
About the Author