"These poems are raw, brave, and sometimes hilarious. Ice Johnson searches the hidden rooms of family history with a determined eye. From nuns to nightmares to cheesecake, she traces with great compassion the debris of haunted relationships."- LENI ZUMAS "This collection by Ice is a wonderful expression of her deep calm & resolve. Her realistic optimism. It's unsettling & consoling, hard & soft, complicated & simple. She has not just survived but triumphed against all odds. 'Alone in the dark, ' she whispers, 'is a dark place, ' and 'tomorrow, ' she adds, 'is so far away.' 'But you are the only one I will ever love, ' she reveals, 'and I still want to dance with you.' Note the word 'still' and all it says & doesn't say. 'Cuddled in the pit of your arm / I'm hiding from the day.' Hiding in plain sight, where she and her evocative, lovely poems belong."- ANGELO VERGA "Ice is anything but cold. These confessions of unashamed love, expressed frankly and directly, are warm enough to heat a city. In this age of ironic commentary on dreadful topics, it is refreshing to read these ardently unironic expressions of the author's humanity."- BARRY WALLENSTEIN
About the Author: Dividing livelihood between New York and Chicago may be all Ice Gayle Johnson does by half. The cool plurality of her sibilant first person suggests a lineage, an eponymous book title, perhaps, in itself - oracular. Empery, certainly, the lot of her talents - its salad of diversity, distribution and influence - decidedly Caesar, no mere lettuce. Already multi, media among her many hands further subsume boundary; evince singular, quite apart from uniqueness as poet, editor, publisher, performer, and photographer. Ice assays beauty vital in its combinatorial aesthetic, transformation and ascription to the everyday: the artist complete, recognizable as well to Warhol as Baudelaire. The stylist, she shapes hair - sculpts, carves, clips, cuts, colors, configures and casts: supplements, creates -or, as case varies, complements-image everywhere we see. The "Five-point Cut," "Graduated Bob," and "Fire Fly" are hers. Former artistic director and general manager for Vidal Sassoon of Chicago, designer and developer of salons, teacher, consultant, cicerone of product and trend, she has sat on Clairol's Presidential Council side-by-side with Nancy Reagan's colorist, been juried into Intercoiffeur, and continues to maintain a cohort of private clients. A founder and shaper of Uphook Press, Ice co-edited and contributed to its debut collection, "A Cautionary Tale: Peer into the Lives of Seven New York Performing Poets," in 2008. Three other anthologies have followed: "you say. say." (2009), "Hell Strung and Crooked" (2010), and "gape-seed" (2011). Professional photographer, she has been represented by Ward Nasse Gallery, New York, participating in group shows from 2000 through 2006. Her photographs have been published by Marcel Schulman Greeting Cards, Signature Greetings, Broader Bond, and Greeting Card Software. Ice the performance poet tours coast to coast from the Bowery Poetry Club in New York to The Beat Museum in San Francisco. Her spoken word tracks have been featured by Stay Thirsty Media and Poetz.com. Eponymous CD and DVD are available at CDbaby and at DVD.com. For more information about her multitude of goings on visit her website (that she of course designed and built) at www.icephotopoet.com.