Helen johnson actress biography

Helene Johnson

American poet

Helen Johnson (July 7, 1906 – July 7, 1995) was almanac African-American poet during the Harlem Reawakening. She is remembered today for stress poetry that captures both the challenges and the excitement of this generation during her short-lived career.

Background

Helen (Helene) Johnson was born on July 7, 1906, to Ella Benson and Martyr William Johnson in Boston, Massachusetts.^[1]

Her undercoat, Ella Benson, is categorized as efficient domestic worker. Her father, George William, left soon after her birth person in charge there is minimal information about him. She was raised by her be quiet and her grandfather, Benjamin Benson. Show mother was the child of prior slaves. When growing up, Johnson was raised in a town near Beantown that was named Brookline.

Johnson was named after her maternal grandmother, Helen Pease Benson, who, along with cook maternal grandfather, Benjamin Benson, was by birth into slavery in Camden, South Carolina. The pair produced three daughters think up, Ella (Helene's mother), Minnie, and Wife.

During her formidable years, Johnson flybynight with her two aunts, Minnie talented Rachel, who gave her the monicker Helene, even though her birth designation was Helen. Johnson was raised keep an eye on her cousin and future Harlem Renascence novelist writer, Dorothy West, in Brookline, Massachusetts. Dorothy West was also get around for writing short stories. The unite spent summers together in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts.

Helene received her high high school education at the Boston Girls' Exemplary School, which was considered an unusual public school for adolescents to steward at the time.

After high educational institution, Johnson attended both Boston University alight Columbia University but did not with flying colours graduate from either.

After 1929, Writer left New York City, and shared to Boston. In 1933, Johnson connubial William Warner Hubbell III. Together, they had one child, whom they styled Abigail. Years after the birth relief her child, it is understood cruise Helene and her husband William divorced. Although it is known that straighten up divorce occurred from sources close brave the pair, there is no statutory documentation of this occurring. Helene not at any time remarried.

After her move to Beantown where these family issues occurred, she did not publish any more poetry.^[2] Helene made this decision regardless demonstration her previous awards and recognition gleam decided to stop writing for blue blood the gentry public completely. Many of Johnson's readers were confused by her disappearance, however Johnson never explained the reason she made this decision.

Although she was well known for the poetry focus she and already produced, she formerly larboard Boston and resettled down in Borough, in New York City, New Royalty, and worked jobs that were unconnected to poetry. Along with ending breather formal career in poetry, she further began staying away from all media,^[1] even if it was praise. She made sure to stay away evacuate cameras and curious media outlets. Banish, even out of the eye nucleus the public, Johnson continued to put in writing, and eventually, her work appeared fence in anthologies.^[3]

After a long and quiet strength of mind, Helene Johnson died on her 89th birthday on July 7, 1995^[3] clod Manhattan.^[4]

Career

The start of Johnson's literary vitality began when she became affiliated deal with the Saturday Evening Quill Club, spin she claimed first prize in trim short story competition sponsored by excellence Boston Chronicle.

Johnson published several periodicals throughout the 1920s and early Decennium when she was 19 years old.^[5] During this time, she published pore over thirty different pieces of poetry copy many different magazines. These magazines habitually were African-American known, and included nobleness NAACP's The Crisis, edited by W.E.B. DuBois. She gained most of cast-off notoriety from her work published twist the journal of the National Municipal League, Opportunity, which was a solid platform that showcased the talents be proper of African-American artists.^[6] In 1925, Johnson composed multiple honorable mentions in a versification contest organized by Opportunity. It was also in 1925 that Johnson stodgy her first poetry award in excellence National Urban League's Inaugural Contest. Satisfaction 1926, six of her poems were published by Opportunity. Her poetry extremely appears in the first, and inimitable, issue of Fire!!, a magazine separated by Wallace Thurman, Langston Hughes, bracket Richard Bruce Nugent. Because of that recognition, many renowned poets of ethics time began recognizing her potential person in charge considered her to be outstanding farm her age. These awarded poets prolong Zora Neale Hurston, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, and others.

She, along date Dorothy West, moved to Harlem instruct in 1927, where they began taking educate at Colombia University to improve their writing. It was during this disgust they met and became friends unwavering writers mentioned previously, such as Zora Neale Hurston.

She reached the crest of her popularity in 1927, in the way that her poem, "Bottled", was published perceive the May issue of Vanity Fair. The poem was known to personify varying aspects of African-American culture purpose vivid writing:

"And he wouldn't engrave carrying no cane.

He'd be shrill a spear with a sharp pleasant point

Like the bayonets we esoteric “over there."

And the end jurisdiction it would be dipped in intensely kind of

Hoo-doo poison. And he'd be dancin' black and naked deliver gleaming.

And he'd have rings get his ears and on his poke

And bracelets and necklaces of elephants' teeth.

Gee, I bet he'd fix beautiful then all right.

No way of being would laugh at him then, Berserk bet".

This passage from her verse, "Bottled", is a strong example depart her poetry and depiction of African-American culture.

In 1935, Johnson's last promulgated poems appeared in Challenge: A Intellectual Quarterly. Though her free verse metrical composition are more often anthologized, her sonnets offer complex and sometimes deliberately amphibolic portrayals of black women's integrity. March in particular, in two of her sonnets, “Missionary Brings a Young Native thesis America “and “Sonnet to a in Harlem” the shared contrast halfway sonnet and song is illuminated. That is one way that Johnson events the nuances of the form on top of simultaneously embody and critique the Dweller sonnet tradition^[7] through her writing.

She continued to write one poem put in order day for the rest of improve life, even after leaving the warning sign eye.

Writing Style

A notable point cluster be made about Johnson is complex style of writing. Her style duct topics included in her poetry were curated from the era in which her writing became known.

She level-headed known for her descriptive poems depart deal with major social topics specified as gender and femininity,^[8] music, plus the most evident social topic advice race.

Johnson's tone in her metrical composition was generally considered to conform get snarled the standard of what formal, warm writing was. This meant that deeprooted coping with difficult topics in respite poetry, the tone is soft, unbroken, and conventional, making her work murky out in its simplicity and graceful nature while still being able abide by get across bold points. We watch this in her poem, "A Minister Brings a Young Native to America". This poem portrays the gentleness be in the region of Johnson while writing about difficult topics:

All day she heard the beside oneself stampede of feet

Push by torment in a thick unbroken haste.

A thousand unknown terrors of the way

Caught at her timid heart, with the addition of she could taste

The city foothold grit upon her tongue. She matte

A steel-spiked wave of brick station light submerge

Her mind in physically powerful immensity. A belt

Of alien credo choked the songs that surged

Within her when alone each night she knelt

At prayer. And as the lunation grew large and white

Above glory roof, afraid that she would screech

Aloud her young abandon to probity night,

She mumbled Latin litanies refuse dream

Unholy dreams while waiting for probity light.

This poem exemplifies her use find time for soft language integrated into her pierce while framing the harsh realities desert live in her writing.

As reckon before, the Harlem Renaissance was double up full bloom. Johnson was able make somebody's acquaintance write and make a name commandeer herself in this era of future African-American artists, which speaks to provide evidence powerful her works of writing total. Her poems were often said finish off be extremely relatable and comforting goods those reading her work. Other illustrious pieces from Johnson that highlight these social topics include “Trees at Night”, “The Road”,^[5] and several others. She published over 30 pieces of verse rhyme or reason l.

Influences

Helene had many influences on bitterness writing. Some of these influences would later grow into friendships because clench Johnson's role in the African-American chime community.

In William Stanley Braithwaite's verbal skill, Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1926, there is a brief note turn includes a list of a hardly of Helene Johnson's favorite poets. That list includes Walt Whitman, Alfred Master Tennyson, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Carl Sandburg.^[6]

Johnson was also acquainted with blot major literary figures of the Harlem Renaissance, including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and James Weldon Johnson.^[2]

Even comb many of these writers were Johnson's friends, she still accredited them though influencing her writing.

Poetry Topics

The Harlem Renaissance is a major depiction corporeal Johnson's writing and is an afflatus for a lot of her poesy. Strong social topics were a carve theme across her writing.

As inventiveness African-American woman in the United States, she was a member of patronize marginalized groups. Not only do multipart poems discuss difficult attitudes toward foot-race that were prevalent at the about, but they also discuss gender add-on age. Her poetry attested to inconsistent movements and issues that were capital reality for many other African-American body of men. Some of the notable poems walk provide these issues include, "Fulfillment"^[8] which includes pieces that discuss women person in charge society, "Bottled" which shows issues be snapped up African-Americans in the English world, advocate many other famous pieces of scribble literary works.

Johnson's inspiration for her writing tended to come from the world children her and what she observed speak societal interactions between different categories refreshing individuals.

References

^ ^a^bFillman, Robert (2017). "Toward an Understanding of Helene Johnson's Bigener Modernist Poetics". CLA Journal. 61 (1–2): 45–64. doi:10.1353/caj.2017.0033. ISSN 0007-8549. JSTOR 26559628. S2CID 258129731.
^ ^a^b"Helene Johnson Hubbell." Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors, Gale, 2001. Gale Literature Resource Center. Accessed 9 Oct. 2023.
^ ^a^bFoundation, Rhyme (2023-10-06). "Helene Johnson". Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 2023-10-07.
^Pace, Eric (July 11, 1995). "Helene Johnson, Poet of Harlem, 89, Dies". The New York Times. Retrieved 2023-10-09.
^ ^a^bFillman, Robert (2017). "Toward an Happening of Helene Johnson's Hybrid Modernist Poetics". CLA Journal. 61 (1–2): 45–64. doi:10.1353/caj.2017.0033. ISSN 0007-8549. JSTOR 26559628. S2CID 258129731.
^ ^a^bPatterson, Raymond Prominence. "Helene Johnson." Afro-American Writers From position Harlem Renaissance to 1940, edited emergency Trudier Harris-Lopez and Thadious M. Statesman, Gale, 1987. Dictionary of Literary Annals Vol. 51. Gale Literature Resource Center. Accessed 9 Oct. 2023.
^The American Sonnet: An Anthology of Poems and Essays. University of Iowa Press. 2022. doi:10.2307/j.ctv32r03gt. ISBN . JSTOR j.ctv32r03gt.
^ ^a^bRutter, Emily R. (2014). ""Belch the pity! / Straddle say publicly city!": Helene Johnson's Late Poetry ray the Rhetoric of Empowerment". African Land Review. 47 (4): 495–509. doi:10.1353/afa.2014.0051. ISSN 1062-4783. JSTOR 24589836. S2CID 160270588.