“J. Chester Johnson’s account of his long service on the drafting committee for the Episcopal Church’s project almost fifty years ago to retranslate the Psalter is a wonderfully cautious, sensitive and even-handed book. It is bound to fascinate anyone interested in translation, and may go a good way to pacify those casual or accidental partakers in Christian rituals today who find themselves (as Auden certainly was) aghast at what appear to be unnecessary textual modernizations. Johnson is a fine poet himself. He is to be praised for his verbal attentiveness throughout the book, and not least for his orderly and sculpted expository style. He illuminates aspects of Auden’s practiced faith; he confronts the sometimes thorny issues that face a church sensitive to accusations of remote- ness from the contemporary; and he modestly explains his own origins and assumptions—as promised in the third category of his fetching title. A delightful book.”
—John Fuller, Fellow Emeritus, Magdalen College, Oxford University; one of England’s best-known and favored poets writing today; also author of W. H. Auden: A Commentary, one of the most extensive studies on the poetry of W. H. Auden
“J. Chester Johnson tells a remarkable and illuminating triple story: the story of the English psalms in the past and present, the story of W. H. Auden’s profound engagement with the language of the psalter, and the story of Chester Johnson’s engagement with Auden, the psalms, and the church. I hope this well-told story will be widely read.”
—Edward Mendelson, well-known critic and commentator on English and American literature; Lionel Trilling Professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University; literary executor and principal biographer for W. H. Auden; author of the standard for biographies on W. H. Auden – Early Auden and Later Auden (two books)
“Both as a deft poet and committed heart and hand for the civil rights struggle, Chester’s life has been one of liturgy — one of public service — one of common prayer. The New York Times got it right when covering Chester and Freda working in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina. Chester observed the ‘Eucharist as a mode of reconciling….Chester surmised that the audience came out for the Auden, though if you asked, I think most would have said they came out for Chester….Both poets, Auden and Chester Johnson, challenge us… extending the public and political role of the poet writing in his day and writing to the eternal struggle of man.”
—Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers, Literary Matters, review of Johnson’s presentation at Culture Center of New York
“Self-described as ‘bubbly and slightly mercurial’ in his 20’s, Chester Johnson still charms and fascinates when he discusses his experience on the drafting committee for the 1979 retrans- lation of the Psalms contained in the current edition of the Book of Common Prayer. If you have ever wondered why the psalms in our prayer book today are slightly different, more accurate and sometimes more lyrical than the ones in the bibles you read, Chester’s book Auden, the Psalms, and Me is a must read….this delightful book tells the story of a humbly bright and clever young poet who unabashedly offered his services to a more senior and experienced group of scholars, only for them to discover he was the perfect person for the job….Chester Johnson is clever and humble and thoroughly delightful, just like his book.”
—The Episcopal Diocese of Florida
“In these pages, Johnson awakens our interest in the power of language and liturgy—and that’s true whatever our religious tradition may be! He charts for us a circular pilgrimage toward the mysterious intersection between human language and the sacred. Along the way, his chapters are packed with rest stops where we encounter a host of remarkable figures who similarly struggled with this mystery.”
— Read the Spirit
“Impressively informative and exceptionally well organized and presented….”
—Midwest Book Review
“This book should prove interesting to Auden fans, to all those who love and revere the Psalms, and to readers interested in the 1970s revision process in the Episcopal church. Johnson, known as a poet and translator and for his poem ‘St. Paul’s Chapel’ which memorializes the New York church’s role in 9/11 and its aftermath, writes engagingly for a general, nonspecialist (either literary or theological) audience.”
—Englewood Review of Books
Since the advent of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, the retranslation of the Psalter created for that book has become a standard, used not only by Episcopalians, but adopted by others into their own worship service books and liturgies.