This Waiting for Love: Helene Johnson, Poet of the Harlem Renaissance

By Helene Johnson

Book Overview

This volume brings together all of the known poetry and a selection of correspondence by an enormously talented but underappreciated poet of the Harlem Renaissance. Cousin of novelist Dorothy West and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1558492569
• ISBN13: 9781558492561
• Release Date: February 2001
• Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 0.5" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

Superb tribute to an unforgettable poet

"This Waiting for Love: Helene Johnson, Poet of the Harlem Renaissance" is an anthology of Johnson's work with a rich collection of supplementary materials. The book is edited with an introduction by Verner D. Mitchell.This book includes the following: a foreword by scholar Cheryl Wall; 65 pages of Johnson's poems; a chronology; black-and-white photos of Johnson and her literary and personal circle; a selection of letters by Johnson and members of her circle (Zora Neale Hurston, Dorothy West, etc.); an afterword by Johnson's daughter Abigail McGrath, and a 2-page bibliography.All the supplemental material is fascinating, and helps to put Johnson's life and work in historical and cultural context. But the centerpiece of this book is her marvelous body of poetry. Publication data is given for each poem; included are a number of previously unpublished pieces. Johnson was a true technical master of poetry, skilled at using rhyme, meter, and alliteration. She is as effective with a sonnet as with free verse.Her work is passionate, witty, and bold. She is a keen observer and has some poems that really appeal to the senses. She is adept with vernacular language, as well as with more traditionally literary language. These poems cover an impressive range of subject matter: nature, religion, oppression, Black pride, urban life, war, growing old, etc.I fell in love with Johnson's amazing voice years ago when I encountered her work in an anthology. I am glad to see a volume devoted to her legacy; I highly recommend this book for individual reading, classroom use, and book clubs.

A must read for anyone who loves poetry...

Verner Mitchell's book is long overdue. Helene Johnson was a brilliant, up and coming poet of the Harlem Renaissance when she left the poetry circuit to make a living. Langston Hughes, among others, praised her poetry. Mitchell's book gives us previously unpublished poetry as well as further insight into her life. I highly recommend this book to one and all.