By Anath Hartmann

Special to The Sentinel

Most people don't produce an album even when they're healthy and mobile.

However, Deserie Johnson recorded one when she was bedridden as the result of two serious illnesses.

Johnson, 36, a Capitol Heights resident, suffers from ankylosing spondylitis, a rare form of arthritis, and sarcoidosis, which often attacks the lungs and produces lumps of immune-system cells called granulomas that can make breathing difficult.

But the spoken word artist, who recorded listen2myheartspeak, her first full-length poetic beat CD, while on one of her periodic, illness-induced bed rests with the aid of a beat-making machine, doesn't allow her diseases to hold her back.

"This CD is proof that God exists," said Johnson, who has also beaten lung cancer and on July 11 will celebrate one year of cancer-free living since her diagnosis.

"Doctors didn't think I'd be able to perform" after I was told I had ankylosing spondylitis and sarcoidosis, she said.

But those doctors have been proven wrong.

Though Johnson can't always predict when she will suddenly be afflicted with breathing difficulty or immobility due to her diseases ("I can be fine one minute, and the next minute, my back will literally give out and my breath will become ragged," she said), she regularly performs at open-mic shows, where she reads her poetry, a hobby she's had for the last 16 years.

When she spoke to The Sentinel, Johnson, who goes by the name Sanjo Jendayi when she performs, was slated to read at the Lake Arbor Community Day festivities later this month.

The legally disabled Johnson, who counts poets Maya Angelou and Nikki Giovanni among her influences, is a poetry performer with the local Mad Jazz Poetry group.

Listen2myheartspeak is available on Johnson's Web site, deeprootz.biz, for $10 and will soon be available on amazon.com.

In addition to writing and recording poems, Johnson is a motivational speaker to D.C. public school students, whom she says pay more attention to talks like hers, which feature words set to music, than they do to traditional speakers.

Though Johnson now regularly attends religious services at the Soul Factory, a Forestville church, she wasn't always the believer she is today.

It was during a stint as an exotic dancer that "I changed my life," Johnson said.

"God touched me during that period. I was speaking in schools to young people, and during that time, I had gotten very depressed and tried to kill myself. But then I realized God was with me."

To help stave off her periods of bed rest, Johnson takes several prescribed medications, steroids among them. She also maintains a healthy diet, avoiding pork and red meat, taking daily vitamins and eating "as much raw food as possible."

Johnson, a single mother, credits her mom, friends and children Sekeithia, 19, who sometimes performs poetry with her, and Miguel, 16, with helping her stay strong when she's cooped up in bed.

She also credits her passion for poetry.

"Poetry for me has been therapeutic," she said. "We all have similar stories to tell, but not all of us can verbalize them. With this gift [of poetry], I am verbalizing my story."