Johnson, Fenton (1888–1958) Művek   hu en

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Fenton Johnson was born in Chicago on May 17, 1888. His father Elijah H. Johnson was able to provide his son and wife Jesse Taylor Johnson with relatively good financial security from his job as a railroad porter. Fenton Grew up in a State Street building, provided by his father, where he wrote man of his first literary works. At the age of 12 he published his first poem in a Chicago news paper and by the age of 19 he had written plays that were performed at Chicago's Pekin Theatre ("Johnson, Fenton"). His family was very supportive of his works and encouraged him in many ways. His first book of poetry, A Little Dreaming, was published in 1912 and was dedicated to his grandmother, Ellen Johnson, who may have sponsored the book.

It was in Chicago that he received the majority of his schooling at establishments such as Englewood High School and Wendell Phillips High School. After completing high school he studied at Northwestern University in 1908 and 1909 and at the University of Chicago soon after. He worked as an English teacher at State University in Louisville Kentucky from 1910-1911, which was very unsatisfying to him due to the fact he was paid less than the promised salary. He retuned to Chicago to concentrate on his literary goals and dreams. A few years later moved to New York where he studied journalism at Columbia University’s Pulitzer School. He wrote for the Eastern Press Association and was the acting drama editor of the New York News. He also published two poetry volumes during this time, Visions of the Dusk(1915) and Songs of the Soil (1916) ("Johnson, Fenton").

He later moved back to Chicago where he continued to work as a journalist when he became the founding editor of The Champion (1916) and founder of The Favorite Magazine (1918). His articles in both of these magazines focused on bringing about racial harmony as well as bringing up issues related to stabillity and order within society. In the 1930's he began to work for the Federal Writer's Project, a part of the Works Project Administration (WPA) in Chicago. Arna Botemps was Johnson's literary executor, as well as the director of the unit. Johnson worked well with the unit most likely because of the common focus of the unit which was writing about the life of the Negro in Illinois ("Johnson, Fenton").

Fenton Johnson lived a long life passing away on September 17, 1958, but his few literary works, which covered a wide variety of subjects, can be seen to have affected many different people. This can be seen by the multiple antholigies that he has been referenced in such as: James Weldon Johnson's The Book of American Negro Poetry (1931), Arna Bontemps' , American Negro Poetry from (1963), and many others ("Fenton Johnson (poet)").

https://harlemrenaissancepoets7.wikispaces.com/Fenton+Johnson

(Az oldal szerkesztője: P. T.)