An Evening of Poetry with Molly Johnsen

Phoenix Books Burlington is thrilled to host Vermont poet Molly Johnsen for a reading and discussion of her poetry collection, Everything Alive!

Molly Johnsen is a Vermont-based writer and teacher. Her work has appeared in the Nashville Review, Indiana Review, The Slowdown, and others. A previous version of Everything Alive was selected as a semi-finalist for the Black Lawrence Press St. Lawrence Book Award. She holds an MFA from Syracuse University.

About the Book

With desperate longing and raw vulnerability—but also surprising humor—Molly Johnsen’s debut collection confronts trauma and disability like long-lost relatives. Johnsen relies on the power and shortcomings of language to highlight the ways “we are manhandled by mortality.” From a therapist’s office, to a cave in Italy, to the raspberry patch in her childhood backyard, the borders of the material world switch from roadblocks to entryways and back. Johnsen’s work is grounded in precise imagery and keen observation, with cycles of family, trauma, and language at its heart. The reader is literally invited in as Johnsen shifts from begging her brain and body for mercy to forcefully reclaiming her selfhood.

DATE: Thursday, April 9 at 7PM

LOCATION: Phoenix Books, 89 Church Street, Burlington VT

ADMISSION: $3 (+taxes and Eventbrite fees). Your ticket comes with a coupon for $3 off the book. Coupons expire at closing the evening of the event. Tickets can be purchased at the registration link above, or at the door.

BOOKS: Copies of Everything Alive will be available at the event for purchase.

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