Idaho poet to share his work

September 19, 2011
Professor Emeritus William Johnson
Writer and teach William "Bill" Johnson, professor emeritus of Lewis-Clark College, Lewiston, and who has served as Idaho's "Writer in Residence" twice, from 1998 to 2001 and again from 2010 to 2011, will share his work with Bonners Ferry residents at 7 p.m. Friday, September 23, in the visitor's center, and everyone is welcome to attend.

Johnson has published two collections of poetry, a chapbook, "At the Wilderness Boundary," and a full collection of his works, "Out of the Ruins," which won the Idaho Book Award in 2000.

More recently, he's published another chapbook of poems, "Dogwood," and a book of essays, "A River Without Banks."

Even a simple question provokes a provocative answer.

"A recurrent anxiety prods me to write," he wrote. "It's a feeling seeking form, half-given form, by whatever nags or prods me; glint of bottle glass by the road, a woman's downcast eyes, or a mouse dead on a path. Intersections as yet inarticulate, perhaps unsayable, trigger a felt change, and if I'm lucky my anxiety -- whether dread, bliss or something between -- lets words in, and the words move toward a pattern, jumping ahead in hopes the pattern will grow, lapsing back to find it again, and in the process, if I'm lucky, in moments rare as they are redemptive, becoming a poem."

In addition to his reading Saturday, Professor Johnson will lead a seminar for local writers who earlier this year formed a local writing society, "The Write Stuff."

You can find out more by calling Norman Braatz, whose paean to graduates appeared on these pages at http://www.newsbf.com/social/110630braatz.html, to much local acclaim, but no fiscal gain.

Come to think of it ... that describes News Bonners Ferry, too!