Hillsborough poet to read at Dodge Poetry Festival

By Carolyn Foote Edelmann Special Writer
   HILLSBOROUGH — A casual e-mail, followed by a formal confirmation letter, recently invited Charles H. Johnson, prize-winning Hillsborough poet, to join the illustrious roster of poets, including all the living U.S. poets laureate, who will be giving public readings during the 12th biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, which runs from Sept. 25 through Sept. 28, at Waterloo Village in Stanhope.
   The festival attracts upwards of 25,000 attendees.
   ”It’s been 10 years since I’ve read there,” Mr. Johnson said, “and the last time, I didn’t have a book.”
   Now this 1998 winner of the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award has two books, including “Tunnel Vision” a finalist for the 2004 Paterson Poetry Prize. His recent “Stan’s Place” is set in a New Brunswick tavern that has served as an American version of a literary café for generations of Rutgers graduates.
   At the festival, Mr. Johnson will be reading from his published and new work on at 11 a.m. Sept. 27. Featured will be poems from his upcoming “Smoke Signals,” which has been accepted for publication by Warthog Press in Massachusetts.
   Mr. Johnson is known throughout the tri-state area for telling-it-like-it-is, but without bitterness, particularly concerning his experience as an infantry lieutenant during the Vietnam War. As with his fellow Geraldine R. Dodge Poets, he devotes much of his time and life to teaching, including weekly poetry workshops for the Middlesex County Youth Shelter in North Brunswick and monthly workshops for the Paterson public schools.
   Poetry editor of the Identity Theory literary Web site, Mr. Johnson has just retired as night editor of the Home News Tribune in New Brunswick.
   ”I’ve been working 36 years as a journalist,” he said, “23 of them working nights.” Asked if he is busier than ever, “Time is being consumed,” he said with a smile. “But now I get to have dinner with my wife, and go to poetry events. I can hang out with my former students. You know, for too long, my poet’s life has been an adjunct to journalism. Now poetry’s my full-time job.”
   For more information on the festival, visit the Web site www.dodgepoetry.org. Mr. Johnson’s Web site is http://home.att.net/âjohnsonpoet.