“As I drink my coffee, someone somewhere’s hard at work,” writes Dorothy Johnson of New Salem in her collection of some 130 poems, “My Heart Remembers,” recently released by Haley’s.
“Sparse and nourishing seeds, these poems, small sketches, the report of a long life lived in the company of friends, in an old New England village,” writes Candace R. Curran, twice the Franklin County Poet’s Seat Poetry Contest laureate.
“Thanks to Dorothy’s light touch — which has been perfected over a lifetime of reading and writing — the overall effect, whatever the subject, is delightful,” writes author Anna Mundow in the foreword to “My Heart Remembers.”
Johnson began creating the poems with “Shepherds” in 2019. She writes the “Quiet Places” column for Uniquely Quabbin magazine.
Her 2011 book, “A Swift River Anthology,” conjures epitaphs of imaginary residents of the Quabbin Valley.
Playwright and poet, Johnson has regaled, captivated and challenged many audiences over the years.
Resident of New Salem since 1971, she operated the Common Reader Bookshop there with her partner, Doris Abramson, until their retirement in 2000. Long a bibliophile, she worked with MacMillan publisher in New York City in the 1950s and has, among much wider reading, encountered all of Dickens several times over.
She wrote the script and lyrics for musical comedies she directed for New Salem’s 1794 Meetinghouse. Composers Andrew Lichtenberg and Steven Schoenberg provided the music. A hallmark of her playwriting oeuvre involves capitalizing on the idiosyncrasies of players mimicking themselves to comic effect.
Known for her pungent quick wit, Johnson grew up in South Hadley, where she was born in 1933. Her family left a rented farm in Enfield, Massachusetts, one of the towns drowned to make way for Quabbin Reservoir to serve Greater Boston.
Johnson attended public schools through ninth grade, when she went to Macduffie School for Girls in Springfield, where she graduated in 1950. She holds a BA in English from Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley and an MA in theatre from Smith College in Northampton.
“My Heart Remembers” is available at dorothyjohnson.net and from online vendors as well as at New Salem General Store and Haley’s.