Torch Lake and Other Poems a Finalist for Norma Farber First Book Award

Brian Johnson's Torch Lake and Other Poems, recently released by Del Sol Press, has been named a finalist for the 2009 Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. Johnson, formerly an editor with The Prose Poem: An International Journal, has published his poems and prose poems in many journals, including American Letters and Commentary, Quarter After Eight, Eclipse, and West Branch. His poetry will appear in the forthcoming anthology An Introduction to the Prose Poem, and his collaboration with the German painter Burghard Müller-Dannhausen will be exhibited at the M. Beck Gallery in Homburg/Saar, Germany, in 2010.  

Torch Lake & Other Poems, by Brian Johnson: Coming Soon from Del Sol Press

Torch Lake & Other Poems by Brian Johnson has been released by Del Sol Press.

"The most lyrical poems (mostly in prose) that I have read in years. A silver-tongued 'I' with little concern for itself, so wakeful and watchful is it embodied, and so attuned to its bounty of fabulous perceptions. A first collection brought to a nearly translucent state of shine."

—C. D. Wright

"Torch Lake & Other Poems is the most original and exciting collection given American poetry since Larry Levis' Elegy. There's more juice, scope, imagination, and sheer vitality in this work than in twenty run-of-the-mill collections."

—Gray Jacobik

"Anyone who's read Brian Johnson's poetry over the years has been waiting for his first frull-length book to arrive. It's become a cliché to call someone 'a master of the prose poem,' but Johnson has earned the title. These poems are intelligent, moving, surprising, and above all expertly crafted."

—Peter Johnson