Orrick Glenday Johns (June 2, 1887 – July 8, 1946) was an American

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or w ...

and

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

. He was one of the earliest modernist free-verse poets in

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

in 1913-1915 and associated with the artist's colony at Grantwood, New Jersey (sometimes referred to as Ridgefield), where '' Others: A Magazine of the New Verse'' was founded and published by

Alfred Kreymborg Alfred Francis Kreymborg (December 10, 1883 – August 14, 1966) was an American poet, novelist, playwright, literary editor and anthologist. Early life and associations He was born in New York City to Hermann and Louisa Kreymborg (née Nasher), ...

in 1915. Johns's work "Olives," a series of fourteen small poems appeared in the first issue of July 1915. He is part of a coterie of poets and authors sometimes called the "Others" group who were contributors to the magazine or residents at the colony and included:

William Carlos Williams William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet, writer, and physician closely associated with modernism and imagism. In addition to his writing, Williams had a long career as a physician practicing both pedia ...

Wallace Stevens Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance compa ...

Marianne Moore Marianne Craig Moore (November 15, 1887 – February 5, 1972) was an American modernist poet, critic, translator, and editor. Her poetry is noted for formal innovation, precise diction, irony, and wit. Early life Moore was born in Kirkwood ...

Mina Loy Mina Loy (born Mina Gertrude Löwy; 27 December 1882 – 25 September 1966) was a British-born artist, writer, poet, playwright, novelist, painter, designer of lamps, and bohemian. She was one of the last of the first-generation modernists to ...

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...

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, T. S. Eliot,

Amy Lowell Amy Lawrence Lowell (February 9, 1874 – May 12, 1925) was an American poet of the imagist school, which promoted a return to classical values. She posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926. Life Amy Lowell was born on Febr ...

, H.D.,

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Man Ray Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealism, Surrealist movements, although his t ...

, Skipwith Cannell, Lola Ridge,

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...

, and Fenton Johnson (poet) (the only African American published in the magazine). Johns is also associated with poets like Vachel Lindsay and Sara Teasdale. and the dramatist Zoe Akins

Early life

Johns was born in St. Louis,

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

, to

George Sibley Johns George Sibley Johns (1857–1941) was an American journalist, most notable as editor of the ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch''. Biography Johns was born in St. Charles, Missouri, to John Jay Johns and Jane Amanda Durfee. He was named after George Cham ...

and Minnehaha McDearmon. George Sibley Johns was the editor of the ''St. Louis Post Dispatch.'' George and Minnehaha had six sons. They moved around St. Louis a lot before they settled into a house on Cabanne Place when Orrick was six years old. He lost a leg in a streetcar accident one year later. After the accident, Johns's family had to give up their home on Cabanne Place and move across the tracks to Maple avenue. Johns spent six months in bed recovering from the amputation and spent his time reading and developing a love of writing and publishing. The trolley company was deemed liable for the accident and the family was awarded a small sum. The accident spurred George Sibley Johns as one of Joseph Pulitzer's "Fighting Editors" to start a newspaper campaign to have the trolleys install better brakes and put fenders on the cars. Johns was educated locally at public schools, including Dozier School, Central High School, and the University of Missouri. After graduating Johns held several jobs and eventually landed at ''

Reedy's Mirror ''Reedy's Mirror'' was a literary journal in St. Louis, Missouri in the fin de siècle era.Joseph Griffin''The Small Canvas: Introduction to Dreiser's Short Stories'' Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1985, p. 36 It billed itself "The Mid-West ...

'' as a drama critic by

William Marion Reedy William Marion Reedy (1862 – July 28, 1920) was a St. Louis-based editor best known for his promotion of the poets Sara Teasdale, Edgar Lee Masters, and Carl Sandburg to the audience of his newspaper, '' Reedy's Mirror''. Politically, Reedy was ...

. This position gave him his first experience writing professionally.

Career

Johns first gained a national reputation as a poet in 1912. His poem, "Second Avenue," won ''The Lyric Year'' poetry contest, despite competing against Edna St. Vincent Millay's later famed " Renascence." The backer of the contest, Ferdinand P. Earle, chose Millay as the winner. Earle sent a letter informing Millay of her win before consulting with the other judges, who had previously and separately agreed on criteria for a winner to winnow down the massive flood of entrants. According to the remaining judges, the winning poem had to exhibit social relevance, which "Renascence" did not. Johns's "Second Avenue" was about the "squalid scenes" Johns saw on Eldridge Street and lower Second Avenue on the Lower East Side when he was in New York. It coalesced after seeing a speech by anarchist

Emma Goldman Emma Goldman (June 27, 1869 – May 14, 1940) was a Russian-born anarchist political activist and writer. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the ...

on New Year's Eve 1912. The judges had already awarded Johns the win for this reason, and Millay placed fourth. Controversy ensued and played out in newspaper columns and editorial pages and made both Millay and Johns widely known. Johns received hate mail and made clear he felt her poem was the better one and avoided the awards banquet in his honor. Between 1913 and 1915, Johns lived in Greenwich Village in New York City. He then moved back to St. Louis for three years, where he wrote some of his best works. In his Greenwich Village days, he was known as one of the Lyrical Left—more

bohemian Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to: *Anything of or relating to Bohemia Beer * National Bohemian, a brand brewed by Pabst * Bohemian, a brand of beer brewed by Molson Coors Culture and arts * Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, origin ...

than doctrinaire—and did not fully commit to Left politics until he joined the Communist Party briefly in the early 1930s. Johns published three volumes of poetry, ''Black Branches,'' ''Asphalt'' and ''Wild Plum'' in the Teens and early1920s''.'' He wrote a novel, ''Blindfold,'' and a very successful play, ''A Charming Conscience'', which provided him with enough money to reside in Italy for three years. Johns returned to the United States in 1929 and moved to Carmel, California, where he married his third wife. In Carmel, Johns became involved with union organizing and also wrote for Communist newspapers. Johns was an editor of the '' New Masses''. From 1935 to 1937, Johns was the supervisor of the WPA Writers' Project in New York City. His leftist politics drew negative attention in the media and occasional death threats. He resigned from the WPA project in 1937 and published ''Time of Our Lives: The Story of My Father and Myself,'' a work that is part autobiography and part biography of his father, George Sibley Johns, who was editor of the ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch'' and ran the paper after its owner Joseph Pulitzer went to New York to establish the ''New York World.'' In 1938, Johns moved to Connecticut with his fourth wife, Doria Berton, and continued to write articles and short stories.

Personal life

His first wife was Margarite Frances Baird, also known as Peggy Baird and Peggy Cowley from her second marriage to

Malcolm Cowley Malcolm Cowley (August 24, 1898 – March 27, 1989) was an American writer, editor, historian, poet, and literary critic. His best known works include his first book of poetry, ''Blue Juniata'' (1929), his lyrical memoir, ''Exile's Return' ...

. Johns was married to Grace Wilson from 1917-1926. His third wife was Caroline Blackman (1929-1936) who bore him a daughter named Charis in 1931, and subsequently was institutionalized for mental illness. She starved herself to death in a sanitarium. His fourth wife was Doria Berton (1937-1946) who bore him a daughter named Deborah. Orrick Johns committed suicide by poisoning himself in

Danbury, Connecticut Danbury is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, located approximately northeast of New York City. Danbury's population as of 2022 was 87,642. It is the seventh largest city in Connecticut. Danbury is nicknamed the "Hat Cit ...

.Philip A. Greasley - ''Dictionary of Midwestern Literature: The Authors''
/ref> on July 8, 1946. He is mentioned in

Kenneth Rexroth Kenneth Charles Marion Rexroth (1905–1982) was an American poet, translator, and critical essayist. He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement. Although he did not consider ...

's poem "Thou Shalt Not Kill" as "hopping into the surf on his one leg".

Bibliography

* 1917 - ''Asphalt and Other Poems'' * 1920 - ''Black Branches, A Book of Poetry and Plays'' *1923 - ''A Charming Conscience,'' a play * 1925 - ''Blindfold'', a novel * 1926 - ''Wild Plum: Lyrics, with Sonnets to Charis'' * 1937 - ''Time of Our Lives: The Story of My Father and Myself'', autobiography

References

* Johns, Orrick and George Sibley Johns, Time of Our Lives: The Story of My Father and Myself, , 1937

External links

* *
Collection of letters
from Sara Teasdale to Orrick Johns. {{DEFAULTSORT:Johns, Orrick Glenday 1887 births 1946 suicides American male poets Poets from Missouri Writers from St. Louis Suicides in Connecticut Suicides by poison American male dramatists and playwrights 20th-century American poets 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights 20th-century American male writers 1946 deaths