Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrew Johnson.
Hi Andrew , thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
One day, when I was twelve, I snagged my dad’s acoustic guitar, locked myself in my bedroom, and stayed there until I had learned the three chords required to play Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth.” I guess that’s how it started. I think something strange happens to any kid who locks themself in a room to figure out how something works—an instrument, a lyric, a melody, a rhythm. You connect not only to the tools in your hands but also to what your own lone body can do with whatever this spirit is that animates it all. You stumble into the creative life because you just wanted to learn that one song, and then suddenly find yourself hooked on the experience of bringing new creations into existence. Like—wow, that’s really what we’re doing here! Bringing new creations into existence! Anyway, that’s how it happened for me, at least. I kept playing music, I wrote stories and songs, I read books and listened to music to discover what’s out there, and I’ve always tried to stay curious. I eventually went to study creative writing in grad school, focusing on the essay and creative nonfiction. After one of our student reading events, the poet Michelle Bouiseau came up to me, grabbed me by the arm (a bit too tightly; she was a small but fierce woman), and said, “There’s poetry in your prose, and you need to register for my poetry course next semester.” I listened to her, thank God. Generally in grad school, it’s easy to be lured into specialization, and I was sure I was on a path to become An Essayist. My writing heroes were (and still are) James Baldwin, Annie Dillard, Brian Doyle, and Wendell Berry. Taking that poetry class, reading Rainer Maria Rilke and Wislawa Szymborsrka and William Stafford, that fierce little poet Boisseau broke apart my notion of becoming just one thing. Whitman wrote, “I contain multitudes.” That’s certainly turned out to be true in my journey thus far. Since grad school I’ve published poems, essays, articles, and two books; but I also organized a grassroots initiative that eventually founded a charter school; I taught community writing workshops; I led a group of neighbors to create the Hyde Park Labyrinth; I worked on a campaign petitioning the government to release someone in federal prison who was wrongfully convicted in the 1988 KC firefighter case; I’ve performed my own music at concerts and I was frontman for a 90s cover band; I relaunched a local arts review magazine and served as editor for the first few issues; and I’ve exhibited my visual and installation art in galleries. That’s some eclectic shit right there. I get exhausted and annoyed just reading what I wrote, honestly. Like, brother, can you focus, please? I know there’s this notion that deep inside us all are two wolves, but I think inside of me there are two dozen hyenas, six axolotols, a partridge, and a pear tree.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
If you’re from Kansas City, you know there’s no such thing as a smooth road. Potholes everywhere. At the end of the day, I’ve not faced the kinds of circumstances or oppressive situations that far too many people face. I’ve not been homeless. I’ve not moved through this whitewashed world with dark skin or an accent. I’ve not been arrested simply for being suspected of not belonging. I’ve not been kicked in the teeth by a mule. Etc. That said, I’ve driven over plenty of potholes that would rattle any vehicle. Unemployment. Depression. Death of folks close to me. Divorce. Alienation and a loss of a sense of purpose. Addiction to this stupid tiny screen in my hand. It’s the kind of suffering that I could probably convince myself is unbearable, except that I’ve always been able to look around and realize either what I’m dealing with is nowhere near as tough as what others face, or if it is unbearable, there’s still likely something within my power that I can do to change the circumstances or my role and choices within it, or I can reach out and ask for help. I’ve not faced anything as irrecoverably damaging as, say, a mule kick to the tooths. I’m lucky in many ways. So when it comes to creating art, poetry, essays, and music, at the end of the day I’ve just got to always remember that the path back to the source is always available to me. God or spirit or the animating spark or whatever you want to call it is always beneath and above and within it all—I’m the one who occasionally goes missing. I have to keep remembering I’m always welcome back to it, to drink deeply of it, and try again to figure out what my gift is in any given season or situation, and determine what is mine and mine alone to articulate and create. I think another struggle that all writers and artists must navigate is learning to develop a relationship with rejection. I say develop a relationship, because rejection is unavoidable if you are constantly creating and then putting it out into the world. Very few folks get lucky breaks, live it up, and then ride off into the sunset. The rest of us must get rejected over and over again and figure out, each of us, how rejection plays a role in the bigger and more essential work of making art and living the creative life. I’ve been rejected a lot. It’s tough. Some rejections sting more than others, and some upon reflection make perfect sense. But either way, those rejections are just more unavoidable potholes I must learn how to navigate on the road to where I’m wanting to go.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Again, I resist the tendency to specialize too much. But I do always come back to thinking about the essay, and by extension, as myself as an essayist before anything else. At its essential core, the essay is about articulating connections through the voice and perspective of the individual self. To paraphrase Chris Arthur, the essayist’s task is to take the events and memory of daily life, break it to pieces, pulverize it, investigate the pieces, form the pieces into constellations, and point to the sky. I love the essay, not only as a form of writing, but as a way of moving through the world. I can’t help that I see connections and want to say something and form some semblance of meaning in response. Every creation is an attempt to articulate something, and often times it’s the attempt itself that is interesting and worthy of sharing, not the idealized or perfected outcome you had hoped to articulate. Usually the hems and haws and haverings are far more interesting than the song perfectly sung. I’ve come to think of the various projects and creative endeavors over the years as, at the end of the day, comprising a body of work that is mine. It’s eclectic, but it’s mine. Anyway, to finally answer the question more plainly: I write essays, poems, and books, and I make art and installations. If I’m known for anything, it’s most likely my writing. I’m most proud of this one weird lil’ essay published in swamp pink a while back titled “Perhaps One Day This Will All Make Sense.” (Link if possible: https://swamp-pink.charleston.edu/featured/perhaps-one-day-this-will-all-make-sense/) What sets me apart from others is I’ve got four nipples.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
I like mid March, late July, all of October, early December, long runs to Kaw Point, autumn bouquets from the Hun family farmstand at the City Market, Marcus Lewis’ hip-hop big band Brass & Bougie, demolition derby at the county fair, coffee and a biscuit at Oddly Correct, the Mark Rothko painting at the Nelson Atkins, Knobtown, our proximity to rivers and lakes, the Dutch baby at Dear Donna, drinking whiskey at the bar at The Savoy while watching old Buster Keaton silent films on the bar TV, the Holsum studios, Liz Cook’s Haterade on Substack, the brand spanking new magazine Meantime, anything Calvin Arsenia does at Greenwood Social Hall, the Instagram account @ChipotleonMain, and the Missouri Valley Room at the Central Library.
I least like early August, late January, our pathetic public transit system, our eternal pessimism toward change, local drivers’ inability to zipper merge, our distance to mountains and oceans, the outsized influence Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce have held for the past decade on young men’s haircuts, the hype surrounding Monet’s waterlilies as if it’s the only work of art that exists in this town, and potholes.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.andrewmichaeljohnson.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrew.johnson.kc/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andrewjohnsonkc
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-johnson-kcmo/
- Other: https://thethread.substack.com/
