Event box

Woodberry Poetry Room

ORAL HISTORY INITIATIVE: On Helene Johnson & The Harlem Renaissance

Tuesday, November 2, 2021, 7:00pm - 8:30pm
Online, Open to the public, Presentation,

REGISTER HERE: for a Zoom link to the event.

Please join us as for this rare look at the remarkable life and work of Helene Johnson (1906-1995), featuring a dynamic conversation with her daughter Abigail McGrath and brief readings of Johnson's work by former U.S. poet laureate Tracy K. Smith and Eileen Myles.

Moderated by Johnson scholar Verner D. Mitchell, the event will offer audiences a unique lens on such friends as Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes, as well as the poet's cousin Dorothy West. It will also provide the first opportunity to encounter several lost poems and variants by Johnson that were discovered during the Pandemic.

The program will end with an engaging Q&A session with the audience and a brief film---written by Johnson's neighbor Matt Imperiale and produced by John Mulrooney---featuring rare photographs and manuscripts (performed by Cambridge's Inaugural Poetry Ambassador Toni Bee and former poet laureate of Boston Danielle LeGros-Georges).

Further Reading: To learn more about Helene Johnson's work, we encourage you to read This Waiting for Love: Helene Johnson: Poet of the Harlem Renaissance, ed. Verner D. Mitchell, and the Lost & Found chapbook edition of Johnson's unpublished works: "The Boat Is Tethered to the Floor": After the Harlem Renaissance

Add to: Google Calendar Other calendar (.ics)

Event Organizer

Christina Davis