Johnny Coley - The Closest Thing To
First Edition Paperback
313 pages
Order
The Closest Thing To is a collection of Johnny Coley's writing spanning the years 1999 to 2025.
His work radiates waking and dreaming life : conscious and unconscious in dialogue as the late great Davey Williams put it. Memories dance with dreams : a solo duet. He carried this mysterious duality in the sound of his voice and the cadence of his speech. For my friends and I, Johnny’s poetry was actually music, real Birmingham Alabama music, and we wanted to play along. His voice offered a landscape that somehow felt like home... -Turner Williams Jr.
When performing with Johnny, sounds and words would build and grow, carrying us in unknown directions that were joyful, hilarious, tragic, and painful. It always felt like we were at once completely free and also holding each other together. Johnny was able to capture a very special perspective in southern experimentalism that was both vital and vibrant. He was part of the deep creativity that makes up the South, woven into the lives of so many people there. -Joel Nelson
...to express just how prolific he was, and the extremely high quality of work he was doing from a bed on the third floor of a medicare facility - he always had a poem he had written, a recording he had made, and a story to tell. He didn’t hold back, he gave it everything he had, and took it all the way. -Walker Yancey
First Edition Paperback
313 pages
Order
The Closest Thing To is a collection of Johnny Coley's writing spanning the years 1999 to 2025.
His work radiates waking and dreaming life : conscious and unconscious in dialogue as the late great Davey Williams put it. Memories dance with dreams : a solo duet. He carried this mysterious duality in the sound of his voice and the cadence of his speech. For my friends and I, Johnny’s poetry was actually music, real Birmingham Alabama music, and we wanted to play along. His voice offered a landscape that somehow felt like home... -Turner Williams Jr.
When performing with Johnny, sounds and words would build and grow, carrying us in unknown directions that were joyful, hilarious, tragic, and painful. It always felt like we were at once completely free and also holding each other together. Johnny was able to capture a very special perspective in southern experimentalism that was both vital and vibrant. He was part of the deep creativity that makes up the South, woven into the lives of so many people there. -Joel Nelson
...to express just how prolific he was, and the extremely high quality of work he was doing from a bed on the third floor of a medicare facility - he always had a poem he had written, a recording he had made, and a story to tell. He didn’t hold back, he gave it everything he had, and took it all the way. -Walker Yancey