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Fenton Johnson: Poems and Author Profile

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Fenton Johnson (1888-1958) was born and raised in Chicago in a middle-class family. He briefly attended Northwestern  University before completing a Bachelor's degree at the University of Chicago. Johnson also attended the Columbia University Pulitzer School of Journalism. Johnson also briefly taught at a private college in Louisville, Kentucky and lived in New York City for a few years during the 1910s. 

Johnson published three collections of poetry in the 1910s, including A Little Dreaming (1913), Visions of the Dusk (1915), and Songs of the Soil (1916). 

Songs of the Soil was reviewed in Poetry Magazine in June 1917. The issue of Poetry where the review was published can be found here.

Through the 1910s, Johnson collaborated with his peers on a series of mostly unsuccessful publishing ventures, including a magazine called The Champion (1916) as well as second magazine called The Favorite Magazine (1918-1919). Both magazines quickly failed, and Johnson re-published several of the short stories he wrote for The Favorite Magazine in a collection of short stories called Tales of Darkest America. 

Johnson published several poems in predominantly white modernist poetry magazines in the 1910s, including Poetry and Others. His poem "Tired" was published in Others and then re-published in The Book of American Negro Poetry in 1922. 

Contents of this path:

  1. Poems by Fenton Johnson in "The Book of American Negro Poetry" (1922)
  2. Fenton Johnson, "A Little Dreaming" (Full Text) (1913)
  3. Fenton Johnson, "Visions of the Dusk" (Full text) (1915)
  4. Fenton Johnson, "Songs of the Soil" (1916) (Full text)
  5. Fenton Johnson, "Tales of Darkest America" (1920) (Full Text)
  6. Fenton Johnson, "Children of the Sun" (1913)
  7. Fenton Johnson, "Douglass" (1915)
  8. Fenton Johnson, "Dunbar" (1913)
  9. Fenton Johnson, "Ethiopia" (1915
  10. Fenton Johnson, "Prelude" (1914)
  11. Fenton Johnson, "S. Coleridge Taylor" (1915)
  12. Fenton Johnson, "Slave Death Song" (1915)
  13. Fenton Johnson, "Soldiers of the Dusk" (1915)
  14. Fenton Johnson, "The Creed of the Slave" (1915
  15. Fenton Johnson, "The Soul of Boston" (1915)
  16. Fenton Johnson, "War Profiles" (1918)
  17. Robert Kerlin, Chapter 2.3 "A Group of Singing Johnsons" (James W. Johnson, Fenton Johnson, Adolphus Johnson, Charles B. Johnson)

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