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| Christmas At The Green Mill Slam, 2014 |
I first met Bill and Caroline Johnson at the most appropriate place possible. It was a poetry reading series I had started at the local Barnes and Noble bookstore, back when they had such things in the cafe, and had event coordinators.
I would place this around 2005 or 2006. I was hosting this series in Plainfield, Illinois, and the series was called "Plainfield Live Poetry." (The website is long gone.)
Caroline and Bill attended regularly. Caroline would read her poems, and occasionally Bill would play for us. The reading grew to nearly 30 in regular attendance, but more often fifteen or twenty.
As such things go, just when it was getting going quite well, Barnes & Noble made the corporate decision to cancel all live events in their stores, and lay off their event coordinators chain-wide. Corporations and poetry, how could they be "forever" companions? One is capitalistic, and they other is mystical. It's like the soft foam of briefly well-mixed oil and water, but I digress.
Caroline and her husband Bill were steadfast in their attendance, which was greatly appreciated by this fledgling host.
We tried again at a place in historic downtown Plainfield on Lockport Street called Gourmet Junction, but it was never the same, and poets don't buy enough. They're too busy being wrapped up in the Wordfield.
Later there was Greenleaf Tea further West, but by then it was a fading dream.
Later, I went to several "Write Chicago" events hosted by Caroline, and more my favorite, her "
Poets And Patrons" group.
Poets And Patrons was brilliant. We would all go to an interesting venue, such as a museum, cultural center, the Art Institute, or one of the other myriad wonders that Chicago held then. At the end, we would gather for a meal, and write poetry inspired by the experience, and share them with each other. It was the most fun poetry concept I can remember, except for the Green Mill Poetry Slam in Uptown hosted by
Slampapi,
Marc Kelley Smith. That comes a little later in the story, however.
Poets And Patrons was so much fun that I created a custom logo for it, though I don't know if they ever used it. Go to their page and look through the photos, and you will see Poetry Sister Caroline (I'm the only one that refers to her as Poetry Sister, and that just in my head and heart.) She's tabling in a couple with her acclaimed poetry book, "Caregiver."
Caroline did a million things to support the vibrant poetry scene that was flourishing around Chicago. The amazing number of poetry readings and events around Chicago is something I will always miss dearly, though California is now my home of eleven years.
There were other poetry readings where I read with and saw Caroline and Bill. One series that I recall was (and maybe still is?) hosted by
Wilda Morris. I forget the title, but it was something with "brew" in it. I think it was a coffee reference, because it was held in a coffee shop, which smells good just thinking about it. (Update: The poetry readings Wilda often supports are called
Brewed Awakening.) {
Wilda Morris is also extremely active in the poetry scene around the West Chicago suburbs, working with the
Illinois State Poetry Society (As did Caroline) and other local poetry organizations.}
I'm pretty sure Saren and I had dinner with Bill and Caroline at least once, but Saren remembers it better than I do on that point.
In 2014, Saren and I decided to move to California. We had grandchildren who were four and five years old out here. They don't get younger and shorter. In January of 2015, we made the move, but Caroline and I did one really fun thing the last Christmas we were in Oak Brook for. We read a poem together at the
Green Mill Poetry Slam.
The Green Mill was the first live public poetry reading in my life. I had a Crown Royal and 7Up to steady my nerves before I got on that stage, but I loved it. I ended up reading at the Green Mill several more times. It was always risky at a slam, because if people start snapping their fingers, you're starting to bomb. If they start stomping, you'd best run off the stage.
One time, I dressed in blue mirror shades, blue denim long-sleeve shirt, blue jeans, and a Fossil "Blue" watch, and read
She Was Blue live. (Audio
HERE) It was a real performance art style there.
Caroline had never been to the Green Mill Slam. So we decided that our last Poetry reading together would be on the Sunday before Christmas at the
Green Mill Slam. Bill and Saren were there, I believe. We laid our plans, and got up on that Christmasy, 1920's art-deco-ish
Green Mill stage, and proceeded to read "
Nothin' Going But Corn Growin'."
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| Nothin' Goin' But Corn Growin' - Sunday before Christmas, 2014. |
If you read it, then you know. For a poem, it's a soft novel too long. It's not the pacing for a snappy, uptown Chicago poetry slam. And snappy they were! For the first time ever when I read at the Green Mill, and Caroline's first time reading there, the audience started snapping their fingers at us! We put on our hard hats, poured the concrete behind us, and Caroline and I were snapped off the stage!
Caroline was a good sport about it, and she thought it was great fun. I was always grateful for that.
After that, we watched Slampapi read his annual Christmas poem on the bar, dressed in a red suit and Christmas lights, looking like Scrooge in elven Christmas chains.
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| Slampapi classic Christmas. |
I heard that Caroline read there at least a few more times, and did quite well. It was only our duo that bombed on my last Chicago poetry reading. As Marc Smith said to me in passing that night, "Dan, you blew it." My answer to him was, "Marc, you haven't truly lived as a poet until you've been snapped off at the Green Mill!"
I always wished I could've attended more of Caroline's poetry events. She never stopped sending me invitations, just in case I was ever in town. So has Wilda Morris, for that matter. I can't tell you how much I would've loved to read in Chicago again. I also always wished that we had spent more time with Caroline and Bill as a couple. But that takes four-person chemistry, I guess. I don't know why we didn't.
For all of 2025, I was off Facebook. I took a hiatus beginning at Christmas of 2024, and didn't get back on until sometime this past February, in 2026.
Caroline passed away on October 1st, 2025. (My Italian grandfather's birthday. He would've been 124 years old were he alive last October.)
You can read Caroline's beautifully-written requiem here:
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/name/caroline-johnson-obituary?id=59654776 . Considering who she was, I am not at all surprised that the last words written for her, after she could no longer write for herself, were well-writ. I think her Muse did her that last kindness, and so did whomever penned it. She was after all, the Poetry Sister. Hers was a life where words not only mattered, but where words were a grace gifted by her to the world all around her.
Bill, if you read this, know I'm thinking of you. I can't imagine how you've gone through this time, which I only learned of two days ago, on Facebook. It was (I think) Caroline's sister, Brenda Ellis reading a beautiful poem for Caroline in a Facebook reel that clued me in. In the constant crush of technical work, I let way too long go by without being in touch. And so it is.
One thing Caroline said to me in email, on October 21st of 2019, when I was writing about missing the poets and poetry in Chicago in response to one of her invitations:
"You’ll just have to start a poetry
group in California! Hope all is
going well, and that you are
writing."
Some day, when I retire, if the world still works at all, I'll have to take her up on that.
Goodbye, my
Poetry Sister,
When more than words mattered,
You were there.
When words were a joy,
You were there.
You will always be remembered for a beautiful life of words and wonder,
At least here,
And probably everywhere.
I know,
Because you wrote.
AquarianM
By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 04/04/2026 - Free use is granted to Caroline's husband, family, and the poets of the Chicago area, and the
Internet Archive.
Author's Note:
At a gut level, I feel it is important that we preserve as much of the history of our era of poetry, and the poets, venues, and websites that made it all happen. We live in an amazing era for poetry. It is a time when poetry as an outlet, a salve for the soul, an artform, and a wonderful and mystical community is flourishing in many ways. Many of those I mention here, and the stories of them, are wonderful pages in that history. - Dan Stafford
