Poetry. "The road in Johnathon Williams's thoughtful first collection, THE ROAD TO HAPPINESS, is a road that runs through rural western Arkansas, and the speaker is not on it. These poems are to Arkansas what Robert Frost's poems are to New England: they are poems deeply rooted in a physical place, with copperheads, locust shells, and blackberries; kilns, pork rinds, and Walmart, too; and they are spoken by a colloquial voice that calls mud wasps 'dirt daubers,' refers to the mentally challenged as 'retards,' and commands dogs to 'turn loose' when their jaws lock on something they shouldn't. Williams explores a primal darkness and isolation, using the constraints of blank verse and the sonnet to order the chaos of a difficult life and quiet what would otherwise be unmanageable feelings. Ultimately, he shows us the frustration and clarity of vision that come when one physically and emotionally stays put."—Katrina Vandenberg