Luke Johnson

Luke Johnson is the author of the poetry collection After the Ark (NYQ Books, 2011). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, New England Review, New York Quarterly, Southwest Review, Threepenny Review, Third Coast, Sou’wester, Poetry East, Phoebe, Nimrod, Hollins Critic, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Georgetown Review, Epoch and elsewhere. His awards include prizes from the Academy of American Poets and the Atlantic Monthly, as well as a Tennessee Williams Scholarship from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. He received his B.A. from Elon University and his M.F.A. from Hollins University, where he was a teaching fellow. Luke is the recipient of a 2012 CityArtist Project award from Seattle’s Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs.

Luke’s 2011 GAP project will be the completion and public presentation of his second collection of poetry, Triphammer Psalms. The poems, predominantly couplets, explore the boundary between poem and prayer and are written in hopes of contributing to the ever-deepening body of New Formalism. Poems from the manuscript have appeared or are forthcoming in Hayden’s Ferry Review, New England Review, Southwest Review, Threepenny Review, and elsewhere. He will use GAP funding to rent chairs to be used at a public reading, and to purchase a laptop to be used in completing the collection. A laptop will allow him the privacy (with simultaneous connectivity) that facilitates an environment fruitful for composition.