In Seven Islands of the Ocmulgee: River Stories, Gordon Johnston has created a powerful collection that reflects the challenges, complexities, and desires of twenty-first-century life in the changing American South. Gordon Johnston, a Professor of Creative Writing at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, knows this landscape well. Johnston, a Georgia native, was previously artist-in-residence at […]
“Scaring the Bears” by Gordon Johnston
February 15, 2023 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Steven Croft As Gordon Johnston’s fellow Georgia writer Tony Grooms has said, “Writers are, by occupation, collectors—not just of books—but observations and experiences.” Scaring the Bears: Poems (Mercer University Press, 2021) is a “middle-of-the-journey” consideration by a fifty-something speaker of an entire life: where he has been and where he believes he is going. The […]