Bright Thorn: Poems 2000-2026

The selected poems of Devin Johnston, a poet who can "change the way you breathe" (Maureen N. McLane).

Why call this plant a weed? Some flowers
evince no difference between
giving and taking, all their powers
dispersed unseen beyond a stile
that your wants might for a little while
be mine, and open to the light.

Bright Thorn, distilling Devin Johnston’s work across a quarter century and seven books, offers an alternative to our frenzied moment through the calm measured feeling and formal intelligence of his verse. Historical, philosophical, closely observational, and rooted evenly in the deep poetic past and the daily rhythms of American life, these poems open the world to imaginative scrutiny. Johnston is a chronicler in a Yeatsian sense, whose eye, cast discerningly over the landscape, is affectionate yet icily clear.