Wild Court

An international poetry journal based in the English Department of King’s College London

Three poems by Kimberly Johnson

For the fourth event in the Wild Court Reading Series, we are delighted to welcome celebrated US-based poet, translator and literary critic Kimberly Johnson.

Kimberly will be reading and in conversation with Dr Hannah Crawforth, Reader in Early Modern Literature at King’s College London. The event takes place on KCL’s Strand Campus, London, from 6.30pm on Tuesday 21st January. Click here for more details and to reserve your free tickets.

Ahead of the event, we feature three poems by Kimberly below.

From Underworlds: An Elegy

                      Jay Hopler 1970-2022

I.

Yet once more, O ye banyans, & once more,
Ye parakeets, come raise your racketty
Requiem. Strike up, Rickenbacker

& firecracker, like dusky Hecate
‘S rough company in hullaballoo.
Up your dirges energetically

Send to the unresponsive stars, the too-
Mute gods. The universe that once was
Bumptious with noise has hushed its clamors now,

Now when I need the comfort of a chorus
To ring the heavy change now he is gone.
Who’d not for Orpheus lift their loudest voice?

My every threnody bangs like a punk song:
Ding-a-ding dang my dang-a-long ling long.

II. the dryads

Black Flag, Anti-Flag, Agnostic Front, The Clash,
Fugazi, Flogging Molly, Dropkick Murphys,
Bob Marley & the Wailers, Johnny Cash,

The Razorblades, The Razed, The Real McKenzies,
Misfits, Minutemen, Primus, Bad Brains, Blitz,
Subhumans, Suicidal Tendencies,

Texas Is the Reason, Boomtown Rats,
Blondie, Buzzcocks, Bosstones, Rise Against,
The Vandals, Rancid, Circle Jerks, The Slits,

Hüsker Dü, The Stooges, The Descendents,
Sex Pistols, The Exploited, X, The Killjoys,
Rites of Spring, Ramones, The Raincoats, Rage Against

The Machine, Minor Threat, Mayhem, Greyhouse,
Dead Milkmen, Dead Kennedys, The Dead Boys.

III.

You were my song, Orpheus. I don’t mean
That yours were the only words in my ear,
The only sound to crank the strict machine

Of my desire, pulse to my cochlear
Shell that shocked down to the trembling
Underworld of me. I mean your steady ear

Was the imagined vessel of my song
& now I don’t know whither it should go,
Or what to say, or why. I’m using

Form to trick myself—this baroque combo
Of Dante & the sonnet like I’m not
Just lurching around, lost in a wood, no

Direction, no guide—into thinking that
Your loss is just a puzzle, and I can solve it.

Posted:

in

Author:

Kimberly Johnson

Kimberly Johnson is a poet, translator, and literary critic. Her work has appeared widely in publications including The New Yorker, Poetry, Ploughshares, PMLA, and Modern Philology. Recipient of grants and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Amy Lowell Trust, and the Mellon Foundation, Johnson holds an MA from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a PhD in Renaissance Literature from the University of California at Berkeley. Kimberly Johnson lives in Salt Lake City, Utah.