Maggie Pogue Johnson

Maggie Pogue Johnson (1883-1956) was a twentieth century Black American composer and poet. Johnson wrote verse in both standard English as well as in the dialect and speech patterns of Black Americans at the time,[1] which still retained the influence of their speech from when they were enslaved.[2]

Maggie Pogue Johnson
Born1883
Fincastle, Virginia
Died1956
Clifton Forge, Virginia
Alma materVirginia Normal and Industrial Institute
Occupation(s)Poet and Composer

Biography

Johnson was born in Fincastle, Virginia, and educated in the Virginia Normal and Industrial Institute in Petersburg, Virginia.[3] Her parents, Lucie Jane Banister Pogue and Rev. Samuel Pogue made sure their children are literate and well-educated, considering the fields that she and her siblings ended up in, such as teaching, physics, pharmacy, and ministerial work.[4] Johnson taught for two years and was also the president of the Literary and Debating Society in Covington, Virginia.[5] She was the composer of "I Know That I Love You" and other songs, as well as the author of Virginia Dreams.[3] Her poem The Story of Lovers Leap was inspired by a famous resorts in the South, Greenbrier White Sulpher Springs in West Virginia.[6] 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.[7] Examples of her alternative model of womanhood can be seen in Old Maid's Soliloquy[6] and Meal Time[6] from Virginia Dreams. Her poem Poet of Our Race[6] is dedicated to the late poet Paul Laurence Dunbar.

She married Doctor Walter W. Staunton of Virginia in 1904 with whom she had one child - Walter W. Jr.[3] and Dr. J.W. Shellcroft of West Virginia in 1938.[8]

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.[9]
  • Fallen Blossoms, Scholl Printing, 1951.[10]
  • Childhood Hours with Songs for Little Tots, publisher not identified, 1952.

Gendered Dialect

Johnson aimed at confronting gender restrictions in her work despite its critical consequences on black female writers. Dialect poetry was mainly a male-attributed art and her use of it endangered her femininity, since black women were already thought to be uneducated and less feminine. Therefore the use of a language that does not abide by white standardized eloquence and correctness was considered risky and threatening.[11] Johnson emphasizes this in her alternation between standard and dialect language in many of her poems. Doing so, she showcases how conditional it was for women of color to learn and use conventional language in order to be accepted in society.[12] Moreover, in much of her poetry, both her male and female subjects serve as exemplars of educational development and moral strength, and as such support the idea of racial uplift.[13]

References
  1. Nurhussein, Nadia (2013). Rhetorics of Literacy. The Ohio State University Press. p. 164.
  2. 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...
  3. 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.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  4. Mance, Ajuan Maria (2016). Before Harlem: An Anthology of African American Literature from the Long Nineteenth Century. University of Tennessee Press. p. 672.
  5. Nurhussein, Nadia (2013). Rhetorics of Literacy. The Ohio State University Press. p. 165.
  6. Johnson, Maggie Pogue (1997). Virginia dreams / Maggie Pogue Johnson [electronic text].
  7. Mance, Ajuan Maria (1995). Locating the Black female subject: American women's poetry and the evolving landscape of African-American womanhood (Thesis). pp. 77–78. hdl:2027.42/129712.
  8. "8 Oct 1938, Page 9 - The Pittsburgh Courier at Newspapers.com". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2020-08-20.
  9. 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.
  10. "Fallen Blossoms by Maggie Pogue Johnson". Appalachian Mountain Books. Archived from the original on 2020-08-07. Retrieved 2020-08-20.
  11. Nurhussein, Nadia (2013). Rhetorics of Literacy. The Ohio State University Press. pp. 144–145.
  12. Nurhussein, Nadia (2013). Rhetorics of Literacy. The Ohio State University Press. p. 163.
  13. Nurhussein, Nadia. Rhetorics of Literacy. The Ohio State University Press. p. 166.
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