Background

Ronald Johnson was born on November 25, 1935, in Ashland, Kansas, United States. He is the son of Albert Theodore and Helen (Mayse) Johnson.

Education

Ronald Johnson attended the University of Kansas, Lawrence, but he moved and lived in New York in the late 1950s. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia University in 1960.

Career

After graduating from university Ronald Johnson wandered around Appalachia and Britain for a number of years and he was inspired by what he saw. So he decided to be a poet. He lived in San Francisco the next twenty-five years.

At the beginning of his career, Johnson was allied with the Black Mountain School's second generation but then began to experiment with the poetics of the concrete poetry movement. Johnson is best remembered for his 250-page poem, Ark, which encompasses three parts of thirty-three sections: The Foundations, The Spires, and The Ramparts. The work took Johnson some twenty years to complete and was issued in 1996.

In addition, he was the author of various cookbooks, including The Aficionado’s Southwestern Cooking, The American Table, and Southwestern Cooking: New and Old. While working on his verse and culinary works, Johnson engaged in various jobs, such as bartender, chef, and caterer. He also worked in academia as writer-in-residence at the University of Kentucky from 1970 to 1971, as Roethke Chair for Poetry at the University of Washington in 1973, as part of the Wallace Stegner Advanced Writing Workshop at Stanford University in 1991, and as Roberta Holloway Poet at the University of California at Berkeley in 1994.

The author of more than a dozen volumes of poetry, Johnson issued A Line of Poetry, A Row of Trees in 1964, followed by The Book of the Green Man, Valley of the Many-Colored Grasses, Balloons for Moonless Nights, The Spirit Walks, The Rocks Will Talk, and Maze/Mane/Wane. He also contributed to various poetry anthologies. He spent the end of his life in Kansas. Johnson's last book The Shrubberies was published in 2001.

Achievements

• Ronald Johnson's books earned him honors such as Boar's Head Award, Inez Boulton Prize, two National Endowment for the Arts Awards, National Poetry Series Award, and the Tastemaker’s Award.
  
  There are Ronald Johnson's metal bootprints on San Francisco South of Market Leather History Alley.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Book of the Green Man

    (This book encompasses a year, October to October: on foot...)

    1967
  • The Shrubberies

    (This volume, edited by Peter O'Leary, is a collection of ...)

    2001
  • To Do as Adam Did: Selected Poems of Ronald Johnson

    (Edited by Peter O'Leary, To Do As Adam Did includes works...)

    2000
  • ARK

    (ARK is a metaphysical poem that could only have been writ...)

    1996
  • Southwestern cooking: New & old

    (This cookbook includes regional traditions collected all ...)

    1985
  • Simple Fare: Rediscovering the Pleasures of Real Food 1989
  • The Aficionado's Southwestern Cooking: New and Old 1985
  • Valley of the many-colored grasses 1989

Personality

Ronald Johnson was active in the San Francisco gay community in Bear culture and was a co-founder of the Rainbow Motorcycle Club.

Quotes from others about the person

• "Writing in an often extremely elevated diction, hardly fashionable today, Johnson utilizes words most contemporary poets shun, words like ultimate, exquisite, chaos, fronds, gorgeous, and celestial. But Johnson is no purveyor of poesy. He counterpoints carefully." - Dan Jaffe
  
  "Johnson does not allow himself to get sidetracked into inconsequentials but ties his art to an objective world where seeing is as practical as a Kansas sunflower and as deep as Blake's visions. The sensuality of his language contrasts strangely with the ruggedness of a Kansas heritage." - Jerome Cushman

Connections

Father:

Albert Theodore Johnson

Mother:

Helen (Mayse) Johnson