Career
She was also a cousin of author Dorothy West. The rest of her formative years were spent in Brookline, Massachusetts. She also received an honorable mention in a poetry contest organized by Opportunity, the journal of the National Urban League that was one of the leading showcase for the talents of African-American artists.
She reached the height of her popularity in 1927 when her poem "Bottled", a work with unconventional rhythms and innovative slang, was published in the May issue of Vanity Fair.
She and Dorothy West moved to Harlem in the 1920s. Johnson attended Columbia University, but did not graduate.
In 1935, Johnson’s last published poems appeared in Challenge: A Literary Quarterly. She spent many years composing poems just for herself, continuing to write a poem a day for the rest of her life, though she stopped publishing after 1937.
She died in Manhattan at the age of 88.