It is easy to recognize that she was once a teacher. The gestures of her hands, the way she organizes her time and confidently asserts her next course of action. But Joyce Sandeen Johnson is more than that. She is a wife, a poet and a lover of knowledge.

Johnson now resides at Clark-Lindsey Village in Urbana. It is a retirement community in which she and her husband, Arthur T. Johnson, have lived for one year and two months. Despite her age, Johnson can still recall details from her school days and every word from the many poems she can recite. Johnson remembers that she wrote the following verse after reading a book by Robert Louis Stevenson, one of her many renowned influences.

“Seashell, seashell, lying on the sand

Tell me about a sailor man

Tell me what happens in the sea

And how the ocean came to be”

The Chicago-born woman can quote complete poems from Sylvia Plath, Dorothy Aldis and Ann Sexton.

Poetry is an expression that Johnson found to be both a joy and a prodigious exercise as she was growing up. Her mother read poems to the family and Johnson began writing poems of her own at an extremely young age, she recalls.

“Like many writers, I burned a lot of what I wrote,” Johnson said. “My mother found I was throwing them out and she kept them.”

The words are still engrained in her memory as Johnson remembers composing a piece while her brother immersed himself in medieval interests such as knights and castles.

“If I were a princess

I would wear a crown

If I were a peasant

The princess would frown

At my ragged clothing

And pillows of straw

I’m glad I’m my common self

After all”

“When you pick up the pen and it comes out, you don’t know what form it’s going to be in,” she said.

Johnson’s poems include French, Japanese, Renga and Tanka styles. For Johnson, writing is not merely an occupation or a hobby; it is an expression of emotion. It is called “ansk” by poets, which is translated from German as “itch.” Johnson, who has published a book of poems titled Impressions, explains that writing is a sort of itch that carries with it a deep emotional weight.

Johnson’s love for writing led her to serve as a board member of the Rockford Writer’s Guild.

“It was the most interesting job in the world,” Johnson said, “You learn so much by reading other people’s poetry.”

While most other women at Clark-Lindsey store dishes in hutches, Johnson’s hutch is filled with poetry books. Johnson stows her poetry on slips of paper stuck between the pages of these books.

But Johnson’s location has by no means meant retirement. Her education continues thanks to her mentor, Edward Davidson, a retired University English professor and a resident at Clark-Lindsey. Johnson considers Davidson a mentor and a friend.

She has also committed herself to working on an autobiography, contributing to The Village Voice, attending the reading group and spending time with her husband.

“Joyce participates in several adult learning and volunteer projects,” said Paula Martin, Clark-Lindsey’s director of special activities.

Sharon Erb, another employee at Clark-Lindsey, said Johnson can be seated at any table during meals because she will talk to anyone. Johnson’s friends describe her as soft-spoken and meticulous.

“She is a nice and well-rounded individual that can get along with other residents,” said Erb.

Martin agreed, saying, “She is a sweet, soft-spoken lady.”