Author Talk with J. Chester Johnson: An Afternoon of Poetry and Prayer

Join us at St. Mark’s in the Bowery for an afternoon with poet and author J. Chester Johnson.

Johnson will share reflections from his book Auden, the Psalms, and Me, offering a rare and personal look at the retranslation of the Psalms in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer and the surprising, little-known role of poet W. H. Auden in that work—including his correspondence with clergy at St. Mark’s. Drawing on his own experience as a member of the Psalter drafting committee, Johnson brings this history to life with insight, humor, and depth.

The program will also include a reading from Johnson’s newest collection, Reading Whispers: Book of Triple Haiku, a luminous volume of short-form poetry attentive to silence, memory, and the sacred in everyday life.

This event will be of particular interest to those drawn to poetry, liturgy, and the living history of the Episcopal Church—and to all who are curious about how language, prayer, and imagination shape one another.

J. Chester Johnson was the poet on the drafting committee for the retranslation of the Psalms, the version now contained in the 1979 Episcopal Book of Common Prayer. He served in this role from 1971 until the project ended with the final publication of a newly retranslated Psalter. For this service to the Episcopal Church, Johnson received a special citation in December 1979 from the Church's Standing Liturgical Commission. He also authored the Litany of Offense and Apology in poetry and prose for the national Day of Repentance (October 4, 2008) when, with the Presiding Bishop officiating, the Episcopal Church formally apologized for its role in transatlantic slavery and related evils.

Recent Pubications

Recent poetry books, authored by Johnson, are St. Paul’s Chapel & Selected Shorter Poems (2010), Now And Then: Selected Longer

Poems (2017), and Reading Whispers: Book of Triple Haiku (2025). In addition, he authored Auden, the Psalms, and Me (2017), the

story of the retranslation of the Psalms, now contained in the current Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church, for which W. H.

Auden (1968-1971) and Johnson (1971-1979) were the poets on the Psalter drafting committee; published in 1979, this version of the

Psalms became a standard. Poet and critic Major Jackson has said of Johnson’s volume of selected shorter poems: “Undoubtedly, this is a

work headed for literary permanence”. Poet and critic Lawrence Joseph said of Johnson’s selected longer poems: “The scope of Now And

Then is epic. It provides its readers with the same amplitude of intelligence, passion and formal achievement as our great American epics

– Melville’s Moby Dick, Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and Ginsberg’s Fall of America”. Ann Cefola, poetry commentator and winner of

The Robert Penn Warren Award for poetry, has recently written about Reading Whispers that “J. Chester Johnson, who is some kind of

national treasure in all his civil rights writing and contribution to the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, has written an extraordinary

volume of poetry. . .one of the best poetry books I have read in a long time. Bravo!”

His poem about the iconic St. Paul’s Chapel, relief center for the recovery workers at Ground Zero in New York City, has been the

Chapel’s memento card since soon after the 9/11 terrorists’ attacks (1.5 million cards distributed). American Book Review said of the

poem in 2017: “Johnson’s ‘St. Paul’s Chapel’ is one of the most widely distributed, lauded, and translated poems of the current century”.

One of fifteen writers selected to be showcased for the inaugural Harvard Alumni Authors’ Book Fair in 2019, he was educated at

Harvard College and the University of Arkansas (Distinguished Alumnus Award, 2010).

J. Chester Johnson is a well-known poet and nonfiction writer, who grew up along the Mississippi River Delta in southeast Arkansas. He has written extensively (poetry and prose) on race and civil rights, composing, at the request of the national Episcopal Church, the Litany for the National Day of Repentance when The Episcopal Church formally apologized for its role in transatlantic slavery and related evils. A number of his writings are part of the J. Chester Johnson Collection in the Civil Rights Archives at Queens College (New York City). Published in 2020, Johnson’s Damaged Heritage: The Elaine Race Massacre and A Story of Reconciliation was an Amazon Bestseller and appears on a Goodreads’ multi-year, international list for Best Nonfiction Books (alongside The Diary of Anne Frank, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, Hiroshima Diary, The Great Fire of London, and The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor, among others). Damaged Heritage has recently been included among the select books for the Library of Congress Shop. Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U. S. Treasury in the Carter Administration, Johnson owned and ran, for several decades, an independent consulting firm for large domestic governments and non-profit organizations on capital finance and debt management. He has lived in New York City for decades with his wife, Freda. For more information, consult Johnson’s writing website: jchesterjohnson.com.

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