What can we remove from ourselves and still be ourselves?

Written after a brain tumour diagnosis early in the pandemic, The King of Terrors is a meditation on living with illness and the forces required to heal. These forces are not always what we expect – they may not even be medical. Jim Johnstone implies that language, relationships, and our immersion in the natural world can free us from the spectre of impending collapse. Haunted by the decimation of the North American landscape and the anxiety of living in a polarized society, Johnstone's poems are bodily reflections that ask how we can reframe our past to make sense of the present. The King of Terrors oscillates between the personal and the public, the clinical and the spiritual, so we're never quite sure what we are seeing, no matter how familiar. (From Coach House)

Jim Johnstone is an editor, critic and poet currently based in Toronto. He has written several poetry collections including The Chemical Life and Infinity Network. In 2008 he won second prize of the CBC Literary Awards for poetry with a collection titled Invertebrate Poems.