Book Review
Selected Poems 2013-2016 by
Jacob Johanson
Spartan Press
Kansas City, MO
spartanpresskc.com
I have read a lot of poetry and published a lot over the last 11 plus years and have been reading and writing it since the 70s . I might have written two book reviews. I rarely feel the need.
One thing I have learned is most poets have to die before someone recognizes their brilliance and collects their work and publishes them. But when I heard the story of how Spartan Press editors Jason Ryberg and John Dorsey collected these poems and published Billboards in the Wasteland by Jacob Johanson as a surprise I had to read it and find out why. Sure the blurbs on the back of the book were good but who’s going to put a mediocre one on a book right?
In this 65 page book Johanson talks about how the world is not quotable anymore but his poems I found are certainly quotable. He is at his best when he speaks directly to someone in the poem like the A Few Tips on How to Avoid Becoming Your Own Pall-Bearer where he talks to his daughters and ends:
finally,
as you grow up,
if there’s one thing
you take away from me,
let it be
the importance
of believing
in unicorns
His Letter to The Ghost of Kell Robertson is another poem in that same vein. Pick a stanza in this poem and you will find something to quote.
kell robertson
i wish you were here
so we could discuss gun control
how well it worked
for the city of tombstone
Johanson appears on the surface to have a easy readable and certainly a relatable style. But the take away is the way he chooses each word and paints each image that makes his work stand out. It is really how he views the world differently than most of us. That makes it deliberate. It is a gift that a select group of writers have. They allow us to see the world in a different way. It is through their words but becomes through our eyes. Johanson is one of those writers, one of those poets. This is a group of poems that when you read them you will say I wish I had said that.
So my friends this is that proverbial if you are going to buy one book this month or this year. No bullshit. No politics. It is this one. Billboards of the Wasteland is available on Amazon or from Spartan Press.
–Scot Young
