And when I looked up the sky had also turned black, and I had aged a hundred more feet down the road. The owl was on the next tree with mirrors as eyes, in case I wanted to see my future. When I looked, I lost another year.
"Homage to the Square is comparatively indirect, a meditative spiralling that carries the reader through a dance of imagery, pausing briefly at various focal points. All the same, the poem has a quietly political thrust. While honouring Josef Albers, the artist whose Homage to a Square series gave Doshi her title, it conducts a friendly feminist argument with 'squaredom' and boundaries."
"Rereading it—both on the page and listening to a recording of Johnson reading it aloud—has been like bathing in enchanted waters: deep pleasure, stimulation of youthful muscle memory, refreshment. Johnson marries the gritty American mundane with the gorgeous sublime like no other writer."
Poetry Daily stands with the Black community. We oppose racism, oppression, and police brutality. We will continue to amplify diverse voices in the poetry world.
