Although she was more known for her novels, folk stories, and anthropology studies, Zora Neale Hurston was also a poet during the Harlem Renaissance.  Hurston was born in Notasulga, Alabama on January 7, 1891 as the fifth child of eight.  Her father, John Hurston was a Baptist preacher who moved the family to Eatonville, Florida when Zora was three years old.

     In Eatonville, Zora’s father became the mayor and by the age of 13, Zora’s mother, Lucy Ann Potts Hurston, had died.  Afterwards, Hurston got a job as a domestic worker.  Zora was not very educated and at the age of twenty-six, she enrolled in Morgan Academy in 1917 with the aid of her employer at the time.  Upon graduation, she attended Howard University and soon transferred to Barnard College with a scholarship for anthropology.

     Professor Alain Locke influenced her decision to pursue a literary profession.  Hurston first received recognition for “John Redding Goes to Sea” and “Spunk” not only caught the attention of critics, but it was also acknowledged by Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen.  Additionally, living in New York was a catalyst for incorporating Hurston’s work into the Harlem Renaissance.

     In 1930, Hurston collaborated with Langston Hughes on the play Mule, but it was never performed due to some disagreements between the two writers.  In 1934, she received success with her novel Jonah’s Gourd Vine.  Hurston, then, studied in Jamaica and Haiti during 1936-1938.  Afterwards, she wrote Tell My Horse which was about Caribbean voodoo. In 1942, she published her autobiography Dust Tracks on a Road.  It was very successful; however critics believed to be exulted by her childhood. 

     From that moment on, everything started to go downhill in her life and her work.  In 1948, her last novel Seraph on the Suwanee was a failure.  That same year, she was arrested for molesting a young retarded boy, but the charges were later dropped.  Then she had to return to domestics and she suffered a stroke in 1959.  Finally, Hurston died on January 28, 1960 of hypertensive heart disease in Fort Pierce.

     Hurston’s style of writing combined literature and anthropology.  In doing so, she was criticized for not writing about issues concerning race.  However, she continued to use her childhood in Eatonville as her motivation and, usually, the subject for her work.  Zora Neale Hurston’s work would go on to influence such well-known writers as Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker.

http://i.am/zora

*Zora Neale Hurston was more known for other things besides her poetry which is why I could not find any of them at the time.  However, below is a link to her first short story that gained her recognition: "Spunk".*

http://www.nku.edu/~diesmanj/spunk.html 

     One poet whose work had a metamorphosis during the Harlem Renaissance was Helene Johnson.  At first, this Boston, Massachusetts native wrote poems about nature, but this soon changed when she relocated to New York with her cousin Dorothy West during the Harlem Renaissance.

     The only child of George William and Ella Benson Johnson, Helene was born on July 7, 1906.  At an early age, Helene’s father and mother separated.  As a result, Helene’s Aunt Minnie helped to raise her.  Minnie’s daughter, Dorothy West, was not only Helene’s cousin, but she became her best friend.

     There are few factors that influenced Johnson to pursue poetry full-time.  As a child, Johnson was home schooled and she enjoyed to read library books.  After she completed her home schooling, she attended Boston University in 1925.  However, in 1926, Johnson and West submitted some of their work to Opportunity magazine and they were invited to an awards ceremony.  At the ceremony, they met Zora Neale Hurston and from that moment, Hurston helped them become a part of the Harlem Renaissance.

     In New York, Johnson’s life and her work were transformed.  When she relocated, she transferred to Columbia University.  In New York, she experienced poverty and hardships first-hand so her writing reflected what she was going through.  More of her work started to have erotic themes and addressed political, gender, and racial issues such as the poem below: "Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem".

     Johnson continued writing until she got married in 1933.  In fact the last poem she published was in 1935.  It is unknown where her earlier works are as well as what happened between then until her death in 1995.  However, Johnson’s poetry will help us to experience what she went through because it reflected who she was and what influenced her during that time.

http://www.umass.edu/umpress/spr_00/mitchell.html

You are disdainful and magnificant--
Your perfect body and your pompous gait,
Your dark eyes flashing solemnly with hate,
Small wonder that you are incompetent

To imitate those whom you so despise--
Your sholders towering high above the throng,
Your head thrown back in rich, barbaric song,
Palm trees and mangoes stretched before your eyes.

Let others toil and sweat for labor's sake
And wring from grasping hands their meed of gold.
Why urge ahead your supercilious feet?
Scorn will efface each footprint that you make.
I love your laughter arrogant and bold.
You are too splendid for this city street.

http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/poetry/johnson_helene.html#heljo1