Helene Johnson poems

1972-1979

Helene Johnson was one of the minor poets of the Harlem Renaissance. She was born in Boston, Massachusetts, educated in the public schools of that city and at Boston University. She attended Columbia University in New York City in 1926. Johnson was the youngest of the African Americanwriters of the Harlem Renaissance. She published approximately twenty-five poems which appeared in such magazines as "Opportunity," "Fire!!," and "Vanity Fair," as well as in "The New Negro." Her writings usually were concerned with ghetto life and a strong identification with her racial heritage. Johnson became relatively inactive before the end of the Harlem Renaissance. The Helene Johnson Poems consist of photocopies of more than thirty unpublished and undated poems with corrections and revisions by Johnson. There are also photocopies of articles which mention Johnson as a Harlem Renaissance poet: "Frank Horne and the Second Echelon Poets of the Harlem Renaissance" from Arna Bontemps' "The Harlem Renaissance Remembered," 1972, "Propaganda and Aesthetics: The Literary Politics of Afro-American Magazines in the 20th century", 1979. Another article is entitled "The Unpublished Poems of Helene Johnson.".