“Into my poems I poured the longing for music.” — Georgia Douglas Johnson | V2Melody

“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

Georgia Douglas Johnson

About Georgia Douglas Johnson

Georgia Douglas Johnson

10 September 1880–15 May 1966

Georgia Douglas Johnson was a luminous voice in American literature, a poet whose words captured the fluttering heart of womanhood, the weight of racial identity, and the quiet resilience of the human spirit during one of the most vibrant eras of Black artistic expression. Born on September 10, 1880, in Atlanta…

More by Georgia Douglas Johnson

Poems by Georgia Douglas Johnson

More remarks by Georgia Douglas Johnson

“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

“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

“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