Out of the Ruins

Johnson’s poems recreate his world in the Pacific Northwest where wild rivers, moose, and lightning are common sights. Whether beholding the Northern Lights, or staring into a high meadow where the dark shape of a bear “lumbers through patches of late melting snow”, Johnson pledges his allegiance to the indescribable joy we find in creation. He uses the most homely objects in his poems — a worn out pair of work boots, a collapsed barn — to embody the past and unite it with the present. In doing so, he leads us out of the ruins along the path to love and redemption.