God Talk of the Gorge: Alaska Poems

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 of
The 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 of
The 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 of
Irreverent Litanies and Hugging My Father’s Ghost

Eric Gordon Johnson was born in Fairbanks in 1948 and raised in Anchorage, Alaska. He is a retired geotechnical engineer, a mountain runner, a cross-country skier, a clarinet player and a tenor. He sings in the Anchorage Concert Chorus and the Anchorage Opera Chorus. He and his wife live adjacent to Chugach State Park on the mountains above Anchorage. He earned an MFA in Creative Writing in poetry at the University of Alaska, Anchorage in December of 2020. He has published poetry, fiction and memoir in Cirque Literary Journal, Alaska Humanities Forum, Anchorage Daily News and Anchorage Remembers. He is a member of Drumlin Poets, Poetry Parley and 49Writers. He has also taught poetry classes for Opportunities for Lifelong Education.

Eric Gordon Johnson was born in Fairbanks in 1948 and raised in Anchorage, Alaska. He is a retired geotechnical engineer, a mountain runner, a cross-country skier, a clarinet player and a tenor. He sings in the Anchorage Concert Chorus and the Anchorage Opera Chorus. He and his wife live adjacent to Chugach State Park on the mountains above Anchorage. He earned an MFA in Creative Writing in poetry at the University of Alaska, Anchorage in December of 2020. He has published poetry, fiction and memoir in Cirque Literary Journal, Alaska Humanities Forum, Anchorage Daily News and Anchorage Remembers. He is a member of Drumlin Poets, Poetry Parley and 49Writers. He has also taught poetry classes for Opportunities for Lifelong Education.