Reading Corene Johnston’s poetry is a bit like visiting her wooden clapboard home nestled in a hollow of the Pennsylvania mountains. With open arms she welcomes you to come inside, pull up a chair at the sturdy yellow farm table for some freshly baked bread hot from the oven, and to savor moments together pondering the imponderable. Corene’s poetry is intimate and stark. Her poems take us from joy to melancholy and back again — a tribute to the human experience in keenly observed detail and sometimes muddy facets. Corene’s words reflect her sojourn of celebrating, sauntering and slogging through her 67 years. They reveal her passion as a writer, artist, nurse and cancer warrior. Pause and allow the seconds to brush softly against your face while cradling each poem of which she has painstakingly given birth. House rules dictate: “Relax, kick back, put your feet up on the coffee table and — exhale.” Doing so, is the next best thing to being with Corene at Champagne Cork Farm.
