a rose tended by a child, as her inspiration for writing poetry. Johnson also wrote songs, plays, short stories, taught music, and performed as an organist at her Congregational church. Poetry She had already begun to submit poems to newspapers and small magazines when she lived in Atlanta. Her first poem was published in 1905 in the literary journal The Voice of the Negro. Her first collection of poems was not published until 1916. Johnson published a total of four volumes of poetry, beginning in 1916 with The Heart of a Woman. In the 21st century, her poems have been described as feminine and "ladylike", or "raceless". They have titles such a "Faith", "Youth", and "Joy". Her poems were published in several issues of The Crisis, the journal of the NAACP that was founded and edited by W. E. B. Du Bois. "Calling Dreams" was published in January 1920, "Treasure" in July 1922, and "To Your Eyes" in November 1924. During the 1920s, Douglas Johnson traveled extensively to give poetry readings. In 1925 her husband died, and she was widowed at the age of 45. She had to rear their two teenage sons by herself. For years she struggled to support them financially, sometimes taking the clerical jobs generally available to women. But as a gesture to her late husband's loyalty and political service, Republican President Calvin Coolidge appointed Douglas Johnson as the Commissioner of Conciliation, a political appointee position within the Department of Labor. In 1934, during the Democratic administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, she lost this political appointee job. She returned to supporting herself with temporary clerical work. Johnson's literary success resulted in her becoming the first African-American woman to get national notice for her poetry since Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. In 1962 she published her last poetry collection, Share My World. The Heart of a Woman Johnson was well recognized for her poems collected in The Heart of a Woman (1918). She explores themes for women such as isolation, loneliness, pain, love and the role of being a woman during this time. Other poems in this collection consist of motherly concerns. Bronze Johnson's collection published as Bronze had a popular theme of racial issues; she continued to explore motherhood and being a woman of color. In the foreword of Bronze she said: "Those who know what it means to be a colored woman in 1922– know it