I could have finished this book much quicker than I did. But I didn’t want to. Some books swallow you. Some books you live in. Some books weave a world of words that you don’t want to leave. I purposefully held myself back, because I didn’t want this book to end. Denis Johnson’s “The Incognito Lounge” invites you into a surreal darkness. And you readily RSVP, because Johnson’s darkness feels so familiar, it’s almost a comfort. It will remind you of a time. You will see the red lights on the ceiling in the middle of the night, hear the broken jukebox, watch a different person looking out from behind familiar eyes. Or something entirely different from your own life, but it will remind you of a time. You will become entwined in the snapshot of lives Johnson writes of, if only for a moment, then realize the next moment that you’re a different person because of it—you’ve just lived somewhere else in one and a half pages. Johnson weaves such vivid imagery with metaphors that make you jealous and lines that slay. I’m a firm believer in that we come across books when we need them. I am ever so grateful I was led to this collection, but I will never be over this book. There is just something about it…it’s so…unapologetically human.

I cannot think of many poets I’d rather have on my shelf...

I’ve been carting this one around since 1998. It’s traveled half the nation and back.

Incognito Lounge is aptly named.
Every time I read the thin book of poems, I feel like a stranger meeting myself for the first time.
Some distant bar. Some distant memory.
Me. Saying, “hello, again”.

The use of language is unique. The twists of words, phrases and thoughts carry an almost tactile sensation.
Reading his poems, my senses come alive.
I think as much as I feel.

All the night long I can betray myself in the honky-tonk
of terror and delight, I can throw away my faith,
go loose in the spectacular fandango
of emergencies that strum the heart
with neon, but I can't
understand anything.

This is the book that put Denis Johnson on the map, as it was chosen by Mark Strand as one of the National Poetry Series winners. Reading it now makes Johnson look like a prophet, with its largely depressing 80's sensibility of anomie, the feeling that America was losing its way forever, just as Reagan was sealing the death warrant of the middle class. Most of the poems are simply devastating at the most basic level of the pulse of a human heart. A few of them may be found at this link. Not every poem is a killer, a few seem forced (at least by the lights of my reading 30 years after publication), since Johnson's individual voice needs the forum of the right occasion to really shine. But the uniqueness of his voice, his prosody and temperament, though written in the broken pavement of that time, ever-insistent on the possibility of love and joy, however temporal and fleeting, is something that is quite unique in American letters. The book is a must-read for all lovers of contemporary poetry.

If you’ve read Jesus son, train dreams, or angels, you’ll be right at home here. And it’s a beautiful home. One of precise prose that evoke broken people in broken places. Part one and the last 2 poems were the highlights for me. Part 3 was not great imo, but even if the whole collection was part 3, I’d still say it’s damn good.

A guttural, shattering, smashing collection that brought my freshman-year self to grips with some of smalltown existentialism's greatest concerns. A dear teacher gifted me this book at eighteen and I have held closely to it since. Denis Johnson has been with me through COVID lockdown, college graduation, the psych ward (twice), and now into my healthier adult life.

The Incognito Lounge asks big questions with precision. Johnson's command of nuanced language is a treat for the inquisitive reader that wants to feel the true emptiness that capitalism serves us daily. As he "pours me some boiled coffee that tastes like noise," Johnson "warn[s] me, once and for all, to pack up my troubles." And I oblige gleefully.

I think to my own hometown, as we both wonder "how [to] turn from the window and feel love [... to] stop seeing this neighborhood, the towns of earth." The Incognito Lounge found me as I was leaving home, and each time I give it another glance, I am reminded of the place within placelessness that is inevitable to the human condition.

While the collection can read slightly trite to a more sophisticated (haughty) reader, I find that part of its charm. An excellent choice for someone approaching poetry from a less canonized background or more postmodern taste. Thank you, Denis Johnson, for helping me love my hometown once again.

Remarkle poems.

need i repeat myself: read...or be dumb!!!

I am just starting to delve into poetry, but this collection by Denis Johnson was an absolute pleasure to read. His language is so precise, unique, and masterful. They are the kind of poems, that haunt you until you untill you pick them up again.

It's interesting to read Johnson's poetry after being such a big fan of his novels. For me, he is most engaging when utilizing his sparse, unique, dark, and subtly humorous word play. While reading, the shadowy approximations of characters manifested themselves into a forced narrative that I found myself subconsciously creating. I wanted so badly to enjoy reading these poems, but after finishing, only found a handful of them truly memorable.

this is what it means to be human,
to witness the heart of a moment like a photograph,
the present standing up through itself relentlessly like a fountain

A great collection of poems set in the windowless Phoenix, AZ bar on Thomas road!