When Animals Are Animals

Poetry. Wrong ticks on, and it feeds on silence. In her book, WHEN ANIMALS ARE ANIMALS, Betsy Johnson refuses to be the quietest person in the world. She names where the teeth are, gets closer to the kick she knows is coming, and makes her weary spirit take up the empty rucksack, because there is work to be done. That is the work of standing up to the cloud monster, of being an antidote, of finding hope in a knot of stones.

Betsy Johnson's tightly-crafted and deeply-courageous third book of poetry, WHEN ANIMALS ARE ANIMALS, walks straight into the dark forest where the violent prey on 'the sunfish/ as innocent/ as your daughter' or 'the dead chicken in the garbage can' that's been pecked to death by the others. In poems that speak the truth of parables, we see that the meek who inherit this earth governed by the 'cloud monster' are, more often than not, women, children, and animals. Johnson charts the difficulties of being a woman and a mother who knows what awaits her own children in a world too often governed by the vision of 'the people who] sit with guns.' In so doing, she offers no easy answers, but rather a hard won truth: 'a bunny with unopened eyes./ a lawn mower./ the grass is as green as it's ever been./ there's work to be done.' That work is quietly pushing back against the misogyny, cruelty, and seeming capriciousness of the 'cloud monster' and all who enable him. Thankfully, we have the gift of Betsy Johnson's supple and wise lyric poems to call us back, to help us find a way home. With her agile and stunningly beautiful new collection to guide us like a prayer, we may indeed yet survive.--Peter Grandbois