Maggie Pogue Johnson

Maggie Pogue Johnson (1883-1956) was a twentieth century Black American composer and poet. Johnson wrote in the dialect and speech patterns of Black Americans at the time, which still retained the influence of their speech from when they were enslaved.[1]

Maggie Pogue Johnson
Born1883
Fincastle, Virginia
Died1956
Clifton Forge, Virginia
Alma materVirginia Normal and Industrial Institute
OccupationPoet and Composer

Biography

Johnson was born in Fincastle, Virginia, and educated in the Virginia Normal and Industrial Institute in Petersburg, Virginia.[2] She was the composer of "I Know That I Love You" and other songs, as well as the author of Virginia Dreams.[2] Her poem The Story of Lovers Leap was inspired by a famous resorts in the South, Greenbrier White Sulpher Springs in West Virginia.[3] Johnson's early poetry was part of a larger movement by Black women poets to create a model of womanhood that was an alternative to the dominant model of "True Womanhood" as a white, middle-class experience.[4] Examples of her alternative model of womanhood can be seen in Old Maid's Soliloquy[3] and Meal Time[3] from Virginia Dreams. Her poem Poet of Our Race[3] is dedicated to the late poet Paul Laurence Dunbar.

She married Doctor Walter W. Staunton of Virginia in 1904,[2] and Dr. J.W. Shellcroft of West Virginia in 1938.[5]

Publications
  • Virginia Dreams: Lyrics for an Idle Hour. Tales of the Time Told in Rhyme, publisher not identified, 1910.
  • Thoughts for Idle Hours, Stone Printing & Manufacturing Company, 1915.[6]
  • Fallen Blossoms, Scholl Printing, 1951.[7]
  • Childhood Hours with Songs for Little Tots, publisher not identified, 1952.

References
  1. Bennett, Paula Bernat (2009). "Rewriting Dunbar: Realism, Black Women Poets, and the Genteel". Bloom's Modern Critical Views: African-American Poets, Volume 1 (PDF) (New ed.). New York, New York: Bloom’s Literary Criticism. p. 139. ISBN 978-1-60413-400-1. Yet, by drawing her vernacular vignettes from the lives of post-bellum– pre-Harlem African Americans whose attitudes and speech patterns were close to their slave roots...
  2. Mather, Frank Lincoln, ed. (1915). Who's who of the colored race : a general biographical dictionary of men and women of African descent ; volume 1 (Memento ed.). Chicago, Illinois. p. 157. hdl:2027/wu.89058633082.
  3. Johnson, Maggie Pogue (1997). Virginia dreams / Maggie Pogue Johnson [electronic text].
  4. Mance, Ajuan Maria (1995). "Locating the Black female subject: American women's poetry and the evolving landscape of African-American womanhood": 77–78. hdl:2027.42/129712. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  5. "8 Oct 1938, Page 9 - The Pittsburgh Courier at Newspapers.com". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2020-08-20.
  6. Theressa Gunnels Rush; Carol Fairbanks Myers; Esther Spring Arata (1975). Black American Writers Past and Present: Volume II: J-Z. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press. p. 435.
  7. "Fallen Blossoms by Maggie Pogue Johnson". Appalachian Mountain Books. Archived from the original on 2020-08-07. Retrieved 2020-08-20.
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