If a rolling stone gathers no moss, the poems in Devin Johnston’s Mosses and Lichens attend to what accretes over time, as well as to what erodes. They often take place in the middle of life’s journey, at the edge of the woods, at the boundary between human community and wild spaces. Following Ovid, they are poems of subtle transformation and transfer. They draw on early blues and rivers, on ironies and uncertainties, guided by enigmatic signals: “an orange blaze that marks no trail.” From image to image, they render fleeting experiences with etched precision. As Ange Mlinko has observed of Johnston's work, “Each poem holds in balance a lapidary concision and utter lushness of vowel-work,” forming a distinctive music.

"Johnston's fifth collection is a triumph of refined technique, but more than that, it's a demonstration of restraint's emotional resonance. A delicately marvelous book."
—David Orr , The New York Times Book Review

"The sounds of these poems are lovely; the ideas are quietly large."
—Daisy Fried, Partisan