Shadow Act: An Elegy for Journalist James Foley

In Shadow Act, Daniel Brock Johnson weaves together prosaic moments from his daily life with words drawn from the diaries and letters of his close friend, the journalist James (Jim) Foley, who was murdered by ISIS in 2014. A transcribed phone message from Foley to Johnson captures their relationship: “Hey brother. I’m … umm … taking off to Libya tomorrow. I’m covering a couple stories on the anniversary, then I’ll be back in May. […] Happy Valentine’s Day. Give Olanna a little hug for me.”

The itinerancy of Foley’s life is inlaid in Johnson’s descriptions of the seasons and rhythms of family life, as when the poet recalls how “Jim clutches Olanna, at 6 months, to his chest like a bundle of forwarded mail.” By grounding details of his deceased friend in the everyday, Johnson avails himself of the elegy’s consolatory powers, the way it can restore the dead to life even while gently evoking their absence. Shadow Act is a testament to the enduring role of the elegy to mourn, celebrate, and immortalize the deceased: “To scratch an ashen line on the wall, to record events on paper—these acts alone, now tether Jim to me across space & time.”

The collection’s breaks and interweavings represent a coming to terms with bereavement. The poet writes beautifully of love tempered by loss, chafing at the inadequacy of language before demonstrating its power to preserve transcendent, humble moments:

there are mornings, mornings like this, when I ferry my three-year-old son to ballet in Boston’s South End, past brownstones dusted white, Bach’s Cello Suites breathing through the Honda’s speakers. In my hand, I cup red raspberries in winter, supple, still wet from rinsing. I offer one, then two, hold out my hand to my son, who takes the tip of my finger into his mouth, lipping my offering. He eats the raspberries, humming, it’s snowing, he eats them all.

Tacit is the awareness that such a mundane scene would have appeared miraculous from the confines of Foley’s cell.