Author: Theresa Harvard Johnson

Copyright 2014 Theresa Harvard Johnson

As a little girl, I didn’t have many heroes.

But like the generations before us we tend to admire people who, for whatever reason, spoke life and hope into our circumstances, described the societal highs and lows that defined culture and gave rise to revolutions. Maya Angelou, right alongside her deeply contrasting counterpart and fictional character – Nancy Drew, was one of those people to me. They rested in my “Writer’s Hall of Fame” right next to poets Georgia Johnson and Margaret Walker.

As a little girl I dreamed passionately of being a writer. In my play time I was a successful “investigative news reporter and poet” all at the same time. I was also black. Even at 11 years old I understood what that meant in the deep south, and in a household with parents who had survived the Civil Rights Movement and were getting used to not having to drink from “colored only water fountains” and ride in the back seat of the city bus. Their stories are forever engraved in my memory.

As I type this, I am fondly reminded of my old poetry books full of comments and notes sitting on the shelves behind me that taught history better than history books; that told stories broader than novels; and that spoke for my mother and father’s generation in a way that no documentary ever could. The truth of poets like Maya Angelou flow from the heart of passionate storytellers, those who understand what it means to “have voice” and “be heard.”

Article History

Copyright 2017 Theresa Harvard Johnson

Of all the forms of writing that exist in the world today, poetry rests at the center of my heart – especially poetry from the Harlem Renaissance (1920s-1930s), an explosive period in Black history in which excellence in all forms of art, particularly literature and music, took the nation by storm and brought a level of healing to the races. For a short time, it became the cultural center of the nation and today, its legacy is so profound that it stands as the epoch of Black artistic diaspora.

This movement was baaaaad!

I owe my poetic awakening to my first grade teacher in the 1970s who would read the works of Black poets in homeroom every morning. She would bring the words from the book to life! I would slouch in my wooden desk as she enunciated every word with such grace, elegance and power as my pigtails swung back and forth and the heels of my Buster Browns tapped the floor. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her; and my ears were trained to hear every poem from that point forward that I would ever read.

I was captivated: A Black girl lost in poetry.

Article History