Remarks by Georgia Douglas Johnson

“This book is lovingly dedicated to Zona Gale whose appreciation, encouragement and helpful criticism have so heartened me.”

Publicly credits a fellow writer’s support as courage for the book · Dedication, An Autumn Love Cycle (1928)

“Into my poems I poured the longing for music.”

Links the cadence of her lyrics to an unsung musical ambition · Quoted autobiographical remark on her verse

“Long years ago when the world was new for me, I dreamed of being a composer—wrote songs, many of them.”

Recalls an early vocation in music before poetry claimed her · Autobiographical note, Opportunity, July 1927

“Somehow all that I have missed in the big ways of the world with its fanfare of trumpets, have more than been compensated for through the fragrant friendships I have known.”

Sets intimate fellowship above public acclaim · Letter to Langston Hughes, about 1930

“I have been fortunate in having the friendship of all of you winged artists. It has been one of my blessings.”

Credits the Harlem Renaissance circle as a sustaining gift · Letter to Langston Hughes, about 1930

“One section deals entirely with motherhood—that motherhood that has as its basic note—black children born to the world’s displeasure.”

Names the wound at the centre of her poems of Black maternity · Letter to Arna Bontemps, 1941

“My first book was The Heart of a Woman. It was not at all race-conscious. Then some one said—she has no feeling for the race. So I wrote Bronze—it is entirely racial.”

Recounts how public criticism pushed her from lyric womanhood to racial subject matter · Letter to Arna Bontemps, 1941

“But, lest we forget, we must now and then come down to earth, accept the yoke and help draw the load.”

Balances soaring lyric with the duty of shared struggle · Letter to Arna Bontemps, 1941

“Whenever I can, I forget my special call to sorrow, and live as happily as I may. Perhaps that is why I seldom elect to write racially.”

Explains her frequent turn from race themes as a chosen art of lightness · Letter to Arna Bontemps, 1941

“Yet, fully conscious of the potent agencies that silently work in their healing ministries, I know that God’s sun shall one day shine upon a perfected and unhampered people.”

Holds sorrow and faith together, looking toward a people no longer constrained · Author's Note, Bronze (1922)

“This book is the child of a bitter earth-wound. I sit on the earth and sing—sing out, and of, my sorrow.”

Presents the racial volume as grief given voice rather than mere protest verse · Author's Note, Bronze (1922)

“There were girls in school whom I would have liked to be associated with but I was too proud to seek them and I had no material offerings to make to attract superior girls.”

Remembering how pride and poverty deepened her youthful isolation · Biographical interview with Theresa Scott Davis and Charles Y. Freeman, 1931

“I'm half way between everybody and everything and I bring them together.”

Summing up her role as a host who connected writers and communities · Newspaper interview, The Baltimore Afro-American, 28 May 1966

Friendship

“You would be surprised to know how many foundations I have tried, and more surprised to learn that each one said 'no,' but most surprised to learn that I have still high hopes.”

Showing resilience after repeated rejection · Letter to Harold Jackman

Art
Hope

“Then came drama. I was persuaded to try it and found it a living avenue.”

Describing drama as an immediate and vital creative path · Autobiographical statement published in Opportunity, July 1927

Art

“If I might ask of some fairy godmother special favors, one would sure be for a clearing space, elbow room in which to think and write and live beyond the reach of the Wolf's fingers.”

Expressing the need for protected space in which creativity can survive · Autobiographical statement published in Opportunity, July 1927

“This book is the child of a bitter earth-wound.”

Presenting racial grief as the ground from which the book emerged · Author's note prefacing a verse collection, 1922

Art
Despair

“It seems to me an art to forget those things that make the heart heavy. If one can soar, he should soar, leaving his chains behind.”

Framing imaginative freedom as a way to rise above sorrow · Letter to Arna Bontemps, 1941

“The words took fire and the music smouldered and so, following the lead of friends and critics, I turned my face toward poetry and put my songs away.”

Recalling the moment when her musical ambition yielded to poetry · Autobiographical statement published in Opportunity, July 1927

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