Javon Johnson

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Javon Johnson is an Assistant Professor and Director of African American & African Diaspora studies and holds an appointment in Gender & Sexuality Studies in the Interdisciplinary, Gender, and Ethnic Studies Department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He received his Ph.D. in Performance Studies with a certificate in Gender Studies and Cognate in African American Studies from Northwestern University in 2010. Dr. Johnson’s scholarly interests include performance, blackness, African American literature, black pop culture, slam and spoken word, black feminist theory, black queer theory, masculinity studies, black sexualities, and ethnography.

Dr. Johnson’s first book, Killing Poetry: Blackness and the Making of Slam and Spoken Word Communities (Rutgers University Press 2017), unpacks some of the complicated issues that comprise performance poetry spaces and argues that the truly radical potential in slam and spoken word communities lies not just in proving literary worth, speaking back to power, or even in altering power structures, but instead in imagining and working towards altogether different social relationships. His second project, The End of Chiraq: A Literary Mixtape (Northwestern University Press (2018) is a co-edited book that critically creatively explores Chiraq (a name that is an amalgamation of Chicago and Iraq as a way to call to the violence of certain parts of Chicago) as a space and as a term. Additionally, Dr. Johnson has published in Text & Performance Quarterly, Liminalities, QED: A Journal of Queer Worldmaking, The Root, Huffington Post, and others.

Currently finishing up his first book of poems, Aint Never Not Been Black, Dr. Johnson is a creative scholar who has mounted exhibitions at the California African American Museum where he managed the History Department. A renowned spoken word poet, he is a three-time national poetry slam champion, a four-time national finalist, and has appeared on appeared on HBO’sDef Poetry Jam, BET’s Lyric Café, TVOnes Verses & Flow, The Steve Harvey Show, The Arsenio Hall Show, United Shades of America with Kamau Bell on CNN, and co-wrote a documentary titled Crossover, which aired on Showtime, in collaboration with the NBA and Nike.

Ain't Never Not Been Black

Ain’t Never Not Been Black foregrounds Black pleasure Black pain and Black love in unflinchingly Black ways.

Engaging with themes of masculinity, racism, love, and joy, Johnson is at once critical and creative. His spoken word performance transfers effortlessly to the page, with poems that will encompass you.

This is a book about blackness and survival, and how in America these are inseparable. In a world of individualism, who can you hold close? In a world of danger, what makes you feel safe?

From a poem written in the form of a syllabus, to another about the time his grandmother literally saved his life, Johnson’s creative expression is constantly enacting the feminist mantra, “the personal is political.”

Awards

Praise for Ain’t Never Not Been Black

Every so often, there is a piece of literature that arrives and encapsulates the black experience in a way that gives the reader a new and vibrant perspective of the culture. Ain’t Never Not Been Black is the aforementioned. Javon Johnson is one of the most brilliant writers in the world and this collection of poems is proof of that claim. Johnson takes us on a journey and each poem serves as a guide to understanding black life in America. The overall narrative arc reminds the reader how multifaceted blackness is and the author challenges us to embrace it all. Ain’t Never Not Been Black is personal, political, insightful and deserves to have a space on everyone’s bookshelf.

– Rudy Francisco, author of Helium

Javon Johnson’s collection of poetry Ain’t Never Not Been Black is a breathtaking work of grief, heartbreak, joy, survival, and love. He writes about America and Los Angeles the way that one can only write about someone they have loved and has repeatedly disappointed them. He contrasts this with the celebration of his grandmother, mother, boys, nephew, a young woman teaching him to move. Many times I realized I had turned a few pages without breathing, only to gasp over an incredibly tender stanza. Once I finished reading, I wanted to weep and clap at the same time. I wanted to thank Javon for never being anything but black.

– Yesika Salgado, author of Corazón

Ain’t Never Not Been Black is part manifesto, part anthem, part testimony, and undeniably one hundred percent black boy joy. Johnson’s poems are a healing salve, a sonic ointment that soothes the wounds of white supremacy and daily pricks of antiblack racism, reminding us of the beautiful bounty that blackness always has been and always will be.

– E. Patrick Johnson, author of Honeypot: Black Southern Women Who Love Women

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Javon Johnson in the Button Store

Ain't Never Not Been Black

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