In God Talk of the Gorge, Eric Gordon Johnson confronts growing up on the edge of Anchorage, Alaska when the State was still a Territory. “Growing up” includes his adult life. These poems revolve around the gradual realization of what it means to live in the presence of life, death and grief. Subjects include ice skating, composting, running Mount Marathon, moose, bear, dogs, geologic time, clouds and spreading ashes. Ultimately, a resolution is found in the acceptance of the world as it is given to us.
These plainspoken poems, set in the rustic foothills outside Anchorage, Alaska, speak to moments of being as Johnson moves through life and meets the faces of death and its aftermath. Johnson brings us close to such moments when he witnesses the dying and disintegration of a bull moose by the pond on his property, relives his own near-death encounter with a grizzly while running in the backcountry, and learns a friend who used to brag about shooting chickadees has disappeared into a river. In its entirety, the collection is a profound, at times painful, homage to his first wife on her journey of illness and recovery to run marathons and return to the illness she called “another form of training.” His poem “True Beauty” meditating on her passing carries the theme that runs throughout the collection, “death makes life beautiful.”—Sandra Wassilie, author ofThe Dream That Is Childhood: A Memoir in Verse
Reading Eric Johnson’s poetry in God Talk of the Gorge takes us beyond the alpenglow. From the icy waters of Baxter Bog to a hospital bedside, we swoop up with the Great Horned Owl and linger overhead with the sweet ache of seeing a little free library in the snow and hold our breath as a grizzly saunters near. In this collection, we pause with the poet at the edge of a gorge for the ritual of intentional listening about what it means to be human.—Vivian Faith Prescott, Poet, author ofThe Divination of Salmon and Silty Water People
Eric Johnson fills his book God Talk of the Gorge with moving recollections of an Alaskan childhood, and poems that tell of the illness and loss of a beloved spouse. He describes the Nordic landscape with intimacy, wonder, and expertise. In every subject he touches on, the poet reveals himself to be a person who cares deeply about the people, wildlife, and places he encounters.—Zack Rogow, author ofIrreverent Litanies and Hugging My Father’s Ghost
These plainspoken poems, set in the rustic foothills outside Anchorage, Alaska, speak to moments of being as Johnson moves through life and meets the faces of death and its aftermath. Johnson brings us close to such moments when he witnesses the dying and disintegration of a bull moose by the pond on his property, relives his own near-death encounter with a grizzly while running in the backcountry, and learns a friend who used to brag about shooting chickadees has disappeared into a river. In its entirety, the collection is a profound, at times painful, homage to his first wife on her journey of illness and recovery to run marathons and return to the illness she called “another form of training.” His poem “True Beauty” meditating on her passing carries the theme that runs throughout the collection, “death makes life beautiful.”—Sandra Wassilie, author ofThe Dream That Is Childhood: A Memoir in Verse
Reading Eric Johnson’s poetry in God Talk of the Gorge takes us beyond the alpenglow. From the icy waters of Baxter Bog to a hospital bedside, we swoop up with the Great Horned Owl and linger overhead with the sweet ache of seeing a little free library in the snow and hold our breath as a grizzly saunters near. In this collection, we pause with the poet at the edge of a gorge for the ritual of intentional listening about what it means to be human.—Vivian Faith Prescott, Poet, author ofThe Divination of Salmon and Silty Water People
Eric Johnson fills his book God Talk of the Gorge with moving recollections of an Alaskan childhood, and poems that tell of the illness and loss of a beloved spouse. He describes the Nordic landscape with intimacy, wonder, and expertise. In every subject he touches on, the poet reveals himself to be a person who cares deeply about the people, wildlife, and places he encounters.—Zack Rogow, author ofIrreverent Litanies and Hugging My Father’s Ghost