Out of the Ruins

Bill Johnson's poems recreate his world in the Pacific Northwest where wild rivers, steelhead, moose, and lightning are common sights. Whether beholding the Northern Lights, painting the trim on his house, 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 even 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.