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Mapping Indigenous Poetry of North America, 1830-1924 Main Menu

E. Pauline Johnson

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Emily Pauline Johnson (Mohawk) was born on the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario, Canada in 1861 to a Mohawk father and an English mother. She was a renowned performer, giving readings of her poetry, as well as an established poet. After publishing her first poems in an anthology of Canadian poetry in 1889, she began publishing her own collections: The White Wampum was published in 1895, Canadian Born was published in 1903 and Flint and Feather in 1912. After she retired from touring, she published Legends of Vancouver, a collection of tales told to her by Joe Capilano, a Squamish Chief. Two other collections of her writings appeared after her death in 1913. In 1886, she changed her name to Tekahionwake, after her Grandfather.

E. Pauline Johnson was inspired by English poets like Byron, Keats, and Tennyson, and this affected her own poetic style, which has raised questions in some quarters about the authenticity of her indigenous voice. Compounding this complexity is Johnson's nationalism, which also appears in a number of her poems.

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Bibliography:

“E. Pauline Johnson.” Canadian Writers, Athabasca University, canadian-writers.athabascau.ca/english/writers/epjohnson/epjohnson.php.

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