For a split second this summer, Devin Johnston and Michael O’Leary thought their ship had come in. The pair, who run a shoestring independent press called Flood Editions, got an E-mail from a judge for this year’s National Book Awards who was interested in one of their titles–poet Ronald Johnson’s final book, The Shrubberies. Could they submit a copy for consideration?
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Through their various endeavors they’d developed a loose web of contacts around the country; both magazines had published work by Pam Rehm, who won a National Poetry Series award for her 1994 book To Give It Up. O’Leary’s brother had written Johnson a fan letter in 1992 and the two had become correspondents; in 1993 Michael and Peter, on a road trip to LA, met up with Johnson in San Francisco and “hung out.” The visionary experimental poet, whose work invites comparisons to William Blake and transcendentalists like Emerson and Thoreau, had recently finished his masterwork, Ark, a 99-part poem 20 years in the making. Inspired by the Watts Towers, LA’s oddball architectural wonder, the poem was divided into three sections–“Foundations,” “Spires,” and “Ramparts”–and the first two parts were published as individual books. The complete poem was published to critical acclaim in 1996.
In 1998, Johnson was 62, living with his 93-year-old father in Kansas, and dying of brain cancer. “My brother Pete was in Austria,” says O’Leary, “and Ron Johnson named him his literary executor,” giving him instructions to “prune the shrubs.” “So Pete called me up and said, ‘Look, man, you’ve got to go down to Topeka and pick up the papers and bring them back and make sure they’re safe–just so nothing happens to them.’” O’Leary, Johnston, and Felix rented a car and drove through the night.
Two years later, when plans for Flood Editions started coming together, O’Leary asked his brother–who’d included 13 poems from The Shrubberies in a Johnson collection he’d edited called To Do as Adam Did–if he and Johnston could publish the whole manuscript. Says Johnston, “Him being his brother–he couldn’t say no!”
But, says Johnston, “Poets like to do something collaborative. Otherwise, you’re just, like, in a room by yourself.”
