As a man James Weldon Johnson is fascinating if only for his many careers: lawyer, counselor to Latin America, founding father of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, lecturer, teacher, elementary school principal, novelist, essayist, song writer, translator, and :poet. However, it is as a poet that he most fascinates me, and as a poet he has not received attention proportionate to his accomplishments. In this paper I wish to trace his development as it moved through four rather distinct stages from his early dialect poetry to his later religious poetry (as represented by God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse.) I believe my summary will show that Johnson gradually developed skill in handling problems of rhythm, imagery, and diction, as well as other poetic elements.