Cosmogony (2019) is a rhyming and metered poem that came to Johnston during a hurricane and subsequent flood in Spring, TX, her hometown, in 1994. In this tale, the major forces of Nature in turn tell their origin stories to a dreamy seventeen year old girl on a Galveston, TX beach and she spins their words into her own tentative life philosophies.
This poem, exactingly created in a sort of time vacuum when the natural world around her was on center stage, is a great example of her early ability to transfuse beauty and hope into her writing.
Readers familiar with Johnston’s 2018 release of Mental, a novel which focuses on one woman’s determination to be whole and happy, will recognize these verses from Part Two. Reprinted here to spotlight one height of her creative skill, this poem is a clever and thought-provoking drama of magical pathos.
This is Johnston’s third book of poetry. She is also the author of Dandelions (2019), a long poem about the wonders of a childhood spent in Nature and Disaster and Harmony: A Poetry Collection (2019), which focuses on the themes of love and personal growth. Her first novel, Leaves Subsiding (2010), written under pen name M. Yoshida McCurry, is about the elusive search for happiness. She recently released the Second Edition of Mental (2018), a novel about overcoming a difficult childhood.
Marie K Johnston (aka Kristen Marie Tichenor, aka M. Yoshida McCurry, aka Kristen M McCurry) is a novelist, poet, visual artist and (amateur) website creator. She is a 42 year old married mother of one living in a little arty town just northwest of Houston, TX. She was educated at The University of Texas at Austin and Cornell University, wrote for Walmart.com and Rice University’s Web & Print Division, and taught high school English/tutored UT@Austin undergraduates for ten years before she married.
To read a preview of Cosmogony (2019) for free now, go to http://Amazon.com/author/mariekjohnston, where you can also enter to win a copy of one of the four titles Johnston is currently promoting. Cosmogony is an eBook ($7.99) and a paperback ($7.99) for sale now on Amazon.com. Go to https://www.amazon.com/Cosmogony-poem-Marie-K-Johnston/dp/1692594095/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=cosmogony+by+marie+k+johnston&qid=1569338582&s=books&sr=1-1 to add this book of poetry to your personal library now!
The Fiction & Folk Art of Marie K Johnston 