Peter Johnson is happy, but he’s not sure how it happened. Like all of us, he struggles with the concept. Happiness cannot be seen or handled. It is the reason we bother to get out of bed each morning, but few of us achieve it on a regular basis. More often than not, happiness creeps in the window while we’re busy complaining about some petty misery. It taps us on the shoulder, floods us with light, but when we spin around, it has disappeared again, off to touch some other life.

“Happy” is the last poem in Peter’s forthcoming book, Rants & Raves: New and Selected Prose Poems. A prose poem is a difficult form to describe, like the exact color of the sky or the mating of lobsters. It involves few of the conventions we normally associate with poetry: stanza breaks, rhythm, rhyme, alliteration, etc. Prose poems don’t care how they look. They’re concerned with voice, imagery, and the tenacity of their echo in the reader’s mind.

Peter’s success with the form was certified by his winning the prestigious James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets a few years ago. As he says of his new collection: “The first poem in the volume is called ‘Pretty Happy!’ and it was written in 1995, so I guess I’ve progressed somewhat in the last thirteen years. Maybe I’ll write a deathbed poem called ‘Really, Really Happy.’

“I wrote ‘Happy’ thinking about how much poetry is hopelessly neurotic and negative, and how much self-promotion occurs in the world of po-biz. I wondered if you could write a poem about happiness that wouldn’t be so bad your mom would stick it on her refrigerator with other inspirational Hallmark verse. For me, happiness turns out to be simple daily details and events. I’ve discovered that most everything else is negative noise I have to negotiate, and I realized that if I could take pleasure in even a simple ellipsis, I might be on to something. I’m still working on that one.”

In addition to the Laughlin Award, Peter has received creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and The Rhode Island Council on the Arts. His young adult novel, What Happened, was awarded the 2007 Paterson Prize. He teaches at Providence College.

Happy 

In spite of persistent rumors, let me assure you I’m happy. Happy as my

well-fed pug and blue-eyed infant. Happy as the Brazilian beauty in a

red thong cavorting half-naked on the Travel Channel. Happier than

the local loonie screaming at the same tree every morning, convinced

it’s an enemy from a past life. I’m happy I can say, “Don’t go away I’ve got

the baddest poem right here in my back pocket,” and no one thinks I’m

nuts. Happy for artificial putting greens, yellow buses that swallow up

children yet no one gets hurt. Happy for tuna fish and the piano player

at Nordstrom who asked me to sing along. Crusty sand dunes, orchids, a

solitary grayish cloud frozen in the sky –– I’m happy for them. Happy for

the rust-colored bottom of a rap diva, for the ant-sized beauty mark on

my wife’s bum. Happy a fifty-five-year-old man can dance and play air

guitar in his boxer shorts while his teenage son laughs himself silly. Even

happy for Plan A, though I’ll never understand it, and for the chance, no,

pleasure, to spend a few idle moments inside this here ellipsis …