Witness Magazine

Jonathan Johnson

Jonathan Johnson
Jonathan Johnson has published two poetry books with Carnegie Mellon University Press, Mastodon, 80% Complete (2001) and In the Land We Imagined Ourselves (2010), as well as the memoir Hannah and the Mountain (University of Nebraska Press 2005). He is also the author of the full-length play Ode, about John Keats and Fanny Brawne. His poems have appeared in Best American Poetry and have been read on NPR’s Writers Almanac. Johnson migrates between Upper Michigan, Scotland, and Washington, where he is a professor in the MFA program at Eastern Washington University.

Glenelg, First Night

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Poetry•Vol. XXVII No. 3 (Winter 2014)

– Gus am bris an là Out from this croft house opens the comfort of black mountains and black sea, black wind flattening black grass, black granite and black names, names with sharp shape and names become smooth black rain, black wind, black sheep white snowflake specks high on the dead bracken hill today—Sheep don’t… [Read More]

Cascades

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Poetry•Vol. XXVII No. 3 (Winter 2014)

One day every memory of whatever night this is will be gone. I row out from my fire and my fire fades back into spruce. Silhouettes of high boughs sink into the ridgeline’s rising silhouette. Jupiter’s reflection keeps smooth pace in water beside me. Moonrise descends into this narrow valley. Cascades fall from my oars… [Read More]