The Chicago Home
Linnea Johnson
1986 Beatrice Hawley Award
"Linnea Johnson's poems are strong and ardent and credible, full of wisdom and indignation. They tell stories we need to hear, sung with the pounding verve
of the blood behind them." "Readers of Linnea Johnson's first published collection of poems will know her vision. No one is spared once eye touches page: every passion and purge
known to womankind is brought alive and bears weight; abandonment at birth, the cold iron of the orphan's crib, seduction and betrayal by family,
pregnancy from rape, death from motel abortion, miscarriage by brutality, beatings, the sanctions of a law that ties woman to brutal husbands... These poems
praise human love and the courage to pursue it. Linnea Johnson is a superb, brave poet. Her books will be read for generations." Winner of the inaugural Beatrice Hawley Award in 1986, Linnea Johnson holds a BA, and a PHD in English, and an MA in Writing and Women’s Studies from Goddard College. Her poems have appeared in many journals including Prairie Schooner, Nimrod, The Women’s Review of Books, American Poetry Review, and The Beloit Poetry Journal. She is a Chicago native and currently teaches at Andover College and lives on the coast of Maine.
(first ever Beatrice Hawley Award!)
—Adrienne Rich
—Hilda Raz
about the author
