"Opportunity Cost is a skillfully built sequence about grappling with the aftermath of assault. Ordinarily innocuous parts of language, like punctuation and the act of editing ones words, become powerful tools with which the poet explores the torturous ways we negotiate pain caused by those close to us. It is a unique book on an often difficult to navigate topic. I am grateful for it, grateful to the poet who crafted it." Kazim Ali, Guest Judge, author of The Voice of Sheila Chandra "This book is awake to its own pain. This book is determined to put it on the record. For me, this book is true solace, stark truth-therefore necessary for all of us to read." Alessandra Lynch, author of Pretty Tripwire "Opportunity Cost is a stunning collection of poems that orbit a luminous and relentless rage, but also cling tight to a relationship with survival, with pleasure, with everything on the other side.

And it is that, that reaching towards an understanding of an after that allows these poems to sing well beyond the page." Hanif Abdurraqib, author of A Fortune for Your Disaster "The poems in Abby Johnson's Opportunity Cost show us how assault changes the way a person experiences the world. Everything becomes a reminder, a threat: the movers who steal underwear off her dresser, the rain which touches the speaker without her consent, even-or perhaps, especially-language. In the poem "He," the assailant infects every single word. In the series, "To My Assailant's Wife," the speaker struggles between what to reveal and what to erase. Who can the speaker trust with her story? Can she trust you?" Paige Lewis, author of Space Struck.