Orrick Glenday Johns was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

 and playwright

Playwright

A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

 and was part of the literary group that included T. S. Eliot

T. S. Eliot

Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...

, F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost...

, and Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...

. He was active in the Communist Party

Communist party

A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...

.

Johns was born in St. Louis

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

, Missouri

Missouri

Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

, to George Sibley Johns

George Sibley Johns

George Sibley Johns 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 Champlin Sibley, founder of Lindenwood College. Johns attended Princeton...

 and Minnehaha McDearmon. He lost a leg as a child in St. Louis to a streetcar accident. He won a poetry contest in 1912 hosted by The Lyric Year, despite competing against Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American lyrical poet, playwright and feminist. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and was known for her activism and her many love affairs. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work...

's famed "Renascence", a victory he felt was misjudged. His first wife was the artist Margarite Frances Baird

Margarite Frances Baird

Marguerite Frances Baird was an American landscape painter. She was married to poet-playwright Orrick Johns and writer Malcolm Cowley and was the lover of playwright Eugene O'Neill and poet Hart Crane.Baird was a member of the women's suffrage movement...

, also known as Peggy Baird. His second wife was Carolyn Blackman. She was plagued by anorexia and mental illness, and was probably the love of his life. They had a daughter, Charis. His third wife was Doria Berton, mother of his daughter, Deborah. His death was by suicide in Connecticut

Connecticut

Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

.

He is mentioned in Kenneth Rexroth

Kenneth Rexroth

Kenneth Rexroth 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...

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

His works include:

• 1917 - Asphalt and Other Poems
• 1920 - Black Branches, A Book of Poetry and Plays
• 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

External links

• Collection of letters from Sara Teasdale
  Sara Teasdale
  Sara Teasdale , was an American lyrical poet. She was born Sara Trevor Teasdale in St. Louis, Missouri, and after her marriage in 1914 she went by the name Sara Teasdale Filsinger.-Biography:...
  
  to Orrick Johns.