Description: Includes all of the author's published poems and a selection of correspondence.
Review Quotes:
"It is with great pleasure and true sense of mission that editor Mitchell presents the first complete collection of Johnson's work, an exhilarating interpretive volume put together with the help of Johnson's daughter, screenwriter and playwright Abigail McGrath, who generously contributed her mother's previously unpublished poems and letters as well as family photographs. . . . As frank, shrewd, fresh, and sexy now as then, Johnson's poems will at last take their proper place in American poetry."--Booklist
"The poems are impressive, not only in quality but in variety--ranging in length, from four lines to four pages; in form, from sonnet to free verse; in style, from the use of dialect to allusions to the Bible and Greek mythology; in tone, from appreciation, sensuousness, and playfulness to contempt; and, in theme, from nature to love and race."--CHOICE "Johnson brought wit, skill, and a keen sense of observation to her poetry. Verner Mitchell here collects Johnson's thirty-four previously published pieces along with thirteen more, composed after she retired publicly from writing. Mitchell rounds off his volume with an introduction positioning the poet within the framework of the Harlem Renaissance, a chronology that unveils elements of a jealously guarded public life, selected letters, and an afterword by Johnson's daughter."--American Literature "Johnson proves herself a lyricist of utmost delicacy yet steely precision; restraint attends her every meditation on love, race, and loss."--Washington Post Book World "Mitchell has performed a great service for students of the Harlem Renaissance with this thoroughly researched collection of Johnson's poems and correspondence."--Hermine Pinson, College of William and Mary