Advance praise for Memento Vivere:
“The poems in Laura Johnson’s Momento Vivre vibrate with images clearly rendered and slightly off kilter. Reading them often felt like beholding a still life painted by an old master anticipating surrealism. What a surprising pleasure! […] Her poetry is testament art’s ability to provide companionship, succor, and delight.”
-Jennifer Colville, Founding Editor of Prompt Press
“This collection is a reminder to live in the moment, without expectation other than to greet the world with clear eyes and open fists. To stay grounded in the wildness of our surroundings and the origins of ourselves. To embrace that wildness. And to live. Always, always, one step after the other in the pursuit of life, because at any moment, it could slip out of our grasps, as it does to the moth, the bird, and the lizard.”
-Nikki Ummel, Associate Poetry Editor at Bayou Magazine
“It’s startling how dearly Laura Johnson loves words. […] These eulogies are rooted in earth but seeking upward, like a plant reaching for the sun. They are at their best when grounded and dirty and tangible, honoring death and life not through memory, but by making them both achingly present.”
-Genevieve Trainor, Publisher and Arts Editor of Little Village
“While the phrase “memento mori” has been used historically on gravestones and the like to check human vanity by reminding us that we will die, in Laura Johnson’s beautiful new collection of poems, those reminders already abound. What we truly need most now, Johnson’s book says in title and underlying sentiment, is to remember to live. And that’s what we do, as we make our way through these perfectly precise, imagery rich, and moving poems.”
-Lisa Roberts, Director of Iowa City Poetry