Billboards in the Wasteland

"In Jacob Johanson's latest book of poetry, Billboards in 

the Wasteland, two strong poems reach out from the 

middle of the book that illuminate Jacob's reckoning 

with the legacies of two late masters he admires, Kell 

Robertson and Lew Welch. Sure, they're formidable 

presences but their influence has never overwhelmed 

Jacob's journey as a poet. His tributes to them are 

substantial and passionate. Jacob writes from the 

burial grounds of the Shawnee, the Kansa, the Osage. 

In one short powerful poem, a haiku almost, Jacob 

imagines the Lakota admitting the violated spirit of 

Tamir Rice to their circle. In another poem, he "saw 

an oncoming storm/divide the desert/into before and 

after/just to learn/the importance of now." There are 

long drives across an insensate America he assures us 

with vibrant, plain-spoken language, that its wrecked 

and beautiful mythology is still intact, that wastelands 

are in the eye of the beholder."

-John Macker, author of The Blues Drink Your

                    Dreams Away, Selected Poems 

                    1983-2018 and Atlas of Wolves.

"There's something in the waters of the Kansas / Missouri 

borders these days, and Jacob Johanson is drinking 

freely of it, which is to our benefit. He is the man of 

early middle age, realizing regrets, well entrenched in 

daily routine, with lots of time ahead to contemplate. 

His poems can be read as, "...old constellations on old 

stars," familiar territory explored with new eyes. There 

are the women, just out of understanding, to tango 

with in minefields. There are the Shawnee sages, as 

well as an exchange with our friend the Moon, no sage 

at all in these pages. Johanson, writing in, "... an era of 

forgotten atrocities," expresses the fears, hopes, and 

memories of those often without a voice. In Billboards, 

the signs are there for all to see, and to find a kindred 

spirit."

-Cheryl A. Rice, author of Love's Compass

"Jacob Johanson's poems are tiny billboards illuminating 

the consciousness of Americans in the early 21st Century 

with quick hit, short lined, revelatory poems full of 

humor, hope and horror. His poems unite the rational 

and the surreal. A man finds god on a small square of 

paper that melts on the tongue another is moved to 

write by an angel thankful there's enough change on 

the dashboard to make it home. Reading Jacobson I 

find myself angry and laughing sometimes simultaneously. 

For example, open this book to page 27 and read Blowing 

Out Headspace, Move Along. Despite the craziness of 

our culture, he ends the poem with these tender lines: 

"close your eyes/and you can feel/I promise/ individual 

blades of grass/pushing between your toes." That's 

soul brothers and sisters. That's soul."

-John Knoll, Black Mesa Blues (Spartan Press, 2020)