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.

Author: Devin Johnston
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 05/12/2026
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.44lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.29w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9780374608835


Review Citation(s):
Booklist 03/01/2026

About the Author
Devin Johnston was born in 1970 and spent his childhood in North Carolina. He is the author of seven previous books of poetry and two books of prose, including Creaturely and Other Essays. He works for Flood Editions, an independent publishing house, and teaches at Saint Louis University, in Missouri, where he lives