author
Orrick Johns
1887–1946
An early American modernist, this poet helped shape the free-verse spirit of Greenwich Village before turning to plays, criticism, and fiction. His work moves between literary experiment and sharp social feeling.
1 Audiobook
Blindfold
by Orrick Johns
About the author
Born in St. Louis in 1887, he became one of the early modernist free-verse poets active in Greenwich Village during the 1910s. He was also connected with the Grantwood, New Jersey, artists' colony, a circle closely linked with Others: A Magazine of the New Verse. Along with poetry, he wrote plays, criticism, and fiction.
His best-known work includes Asphalt and Other Poems (1913), a book often associated with his early modernist period. Over time, his writing life expanded beyond lyric poetry, showing a broad interest in American literary culture and public life.
He died in 1946. Although he is not as widely read today as some of his contemporaries, he remains an interesting figure from the first wave of American literary modernism.