Ronald Johnson was best known as an experimental poet, with books including The Book of the Green Man, Valley of the Many-Colored Grasses, RAD IOS, and his master work, ARK. He worked for twenty-five years as a chef and caterer in San Francisco in addition to occasional teaching stints. He was the author of the cookbooks The American Table (1984, reprinted 2000), Southwestern Cooking: New and Old (1985), Simple Fare (1989), and Company Fare (1991). On his return to Topeka, Johnson worked as a cookie baker at Ward-Meade Park. His last volume of poems, The Shrubberies, was inspired by the gardens there. He died in 1998 in Kansas.