Pauline Johnson

Emily Pauline Johnson is the only Native North American poet that I’ve ever read and studied. She’s one of the first poets I started reading to my daughter (the other being Emily Dickinson).

She has a beautiful style- I love how she creates awkward looking stanzas and combines them with meter and rhythm in such a way as to make the mo...st perfectly flowing poems. Her subject are always sublime, and her passion is always felt.

Happy 150th birthday, Emily. You’re an inspiring poet. Thanks for teaching me to be a better, more creative thinker and writer.


*****


A Prodical

My heart forgot its God for love of you,
And you forgot me, other loves to learn;
Now through a wilderness of thorn and rue
... Back to my God I turn.

And just because my God forgets the past,
And in forgetting does not ask to know
Why I once left His arms for yours, at last
Back to my God I go.