We know that when we strike a match on the side of a matchbox, it is friction that causes the chemicals in the match head to catch fire. Tenea D. Johnson's first book of poetry, Starting Friction, is a small bright, creative burn that captures the imagination. Johnson, who is a musician as well as a speculative writer, has a flare for fresh metaphors and narratives that engage imagination through sparse but tantalizing detail. Throughout, she uses science effectively. For instance, in the first poem, "The Optimism of Physics" the theoretical amount of dark matter in the universe is reason for optimism because "Things make more sense if you keep this in mind. You are not failing or confused/ You, like the universe, are expanding/ filled with enigmatics/ that pop in and out of existence/ as each moment dies."

Johnson's interest is in the science fictional, the mythological, the strange and the curious. Jolene and Nannette are employed to manually "turn down" the moon's brightness. In "Lopsided World" an immortal brother fails to hold up his end of the world leaving his more responsible sister to deal with the mess and disorganization that follows. A "Passport to Hell" with "credit card and checkbook" is found in a "cramped” store in Chinatown. In "The Life Cycle of Dust" "… the last batch of butterflies/ is frozen midair by the first strike of winter/ and blown to bits by the squall that follows."

Like Octavia Butler, Johnson uses extraterrestrial aliens to explore deeply personal issues of war and racial violence. In "Though they would not say what they sought" a space farer surveys the aftermath of an act of terrorism and genocide against "the last enclave of Deciderians left on-planet." In "Something for the signifiers" Brown Sugar is an addict with "wind-whipped wings/tucked securely/ in the back seam of her $12 sundress/ grimed midnight/ by the paws of college boys/ and sterno whinos/ looking for a thrusty fix."

Throughout Johnson's compassion for the downtrodden and her sensibility for the politics of power are beautifully developed. These are poems worth reading again and again.

—Sandra Lindow, Star*line

 

. . . a short, beautiful myth about a god of music and storms. Small and perfectly formed.

—Ann Somerville, Uniquely Pleasurable

The Taken in "Whispers in the Night" from Dafina

African-American horror writer and editor Massey has another slam dunk with his third Dark Dreams anthology (after 2006's Voices from the Other Side) . . . Bright newcomers' tales include . . . Tenea Johnson's provocative meditation on revenge, "The Taken." In Massey's introduction, he hopes someday "any black writer can pen a tale of horror and suspense... without being likened to being merely a black version of a white author, without being viewed with suspicion or even fear." In the meantime, this excellent series continues to fill a now shrinking void.

—Publisher's Weekly (starred review)

Silence on Infinite Matrix