Roman Johnson, Ph.D

Roman Johnson, PhD is a writer and scientist interested in ecological poetics from Memphis, Tennessee. He is currently a second-year Master of Fine Arts student in the Department of Literary Arts at Brown University. He has a Ph.D. in Medical Sociology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, an M.A. in African American Studies from Georgia State University, and a B.A. in Political Science from Morehouse College. He is the co-founder of the New England Hoodoo Society. He is the current Radical Reversal Poet in Residence at the Suffolk County House of Corrections in Boston, Massachusetts. He is the winner of the Lucille Clifton Poetry Prize from Backbone Press, a past winner of the Clark Atlanta University Poetry Prize and has received fellowships from Harvard University, Northwestern University, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Brown University, the National Institutes of Health, Breadloaf, Lambda Literary, Tin House, the Writers’ Studio, Martha Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, Obsidian Foundation United Kingdom, the City of Boston, the Linda Hall Library, Massachusetts Cultural Council, the New England Poetry Club, the Palm Beach Literary Festival, the Hudson Valley Writers Center, the Poets and Scholars Summer Writing Retreat at Rutgers University, and the Watering Hole, and elsewhere. His work has received both Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations and concerns itself with grief, longing, masculinity, violence, and connection. His work can be found in American Literary Review, Obsidian, African Voices Magazine, and elsewhere. He can be found online at his personal website: literaryhoodoo.com. He believes the real work of writing is living well.