Hettie Jones

Hettie Jones was born Hettie Cohen on July 16, 1934 in Brooklyn, New York, to a Jewish family. She was raised in Laurelton, Queens.^[1] She entered Mary Washington College in Virginia in 1952. She had not traveled far from her home until college, and had not experienced antisemitism up until that time: "The roommates didn't want to live with me because I was a Jew."^[2]

After graduating from college and returning to New York, Jones married LeRoi Jones (later known as Amiri Baraka), an African-American writer. Her family initially disowned her for marrying a black man, but her husband's family was welcoming.^[2] Despite living in the diverse Lower East Side of Manhattan, they were sometimes harassed in public for being an interracial couple.^[3]

In 1957, the couple founded the literary magazine Yugen, and launched the publication house Totem Press.^[4] They published early works by Beat generation figures Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Frank O'Hara, all of whom they'd befriended as well.^[3][5]

By 1964, LeRoi had become active in the Black Arts movement and their marriage was deteriorating.^[6] While still married to Hettie, he fathered a daughter, Dominique di Prima, with poet Diane DiPrima. LeRoi divorced Hettie and moved to Harlem. She continued writing, editing, and teaching.^[3]

Jones published her memoir, How I Became Hettie Jones, in 1990. She detailed the experiences of growing up among a Jewish family and community, being part of the Beat Generation, her early writing, and the social difficulties of being in an interracial marriage and raising biracial children.^[7] In 1999, Jones won the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award for her first volume of poetry titled Drive.^[8] According to Booklist, the publication of Drive is what established Jones as a “potent and fearless poet.”^[9]

Jones was a longtime editor and taught poetry, fiction, and memoir at many universities, including Penn State University, NYU, the 92nd Street Y, University of Wyoming, and Parsons School of Design.^[10] Jones was a former chair of the PEN Prison Writing Committee, and from 1989 to 2002 she ran a writing workshop at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women.^[11] This workshop hailed as an inspiration for Jones’ nationally distributed collection, Aliens At The Border.^[12] Jones also co-authored a memoir for Rita Marley, widow of Bob Marley.^[13] More recently, Jones received grants to begin a writing program on Manhattan's Lower East Side at the Lower East Side Girls Club Center for Community.^[14] Her book, Love, H, a selection from 40 years of correspondence with the sculptor Helene Dorn, was published by Duke University Press in October 2016.^[15]

Jones has two daughters from her marriage to Amiri Baraka: Kellie Jones (born 1959) and Lisa Jones Brown (born 1961). They are educators and writers.^[9]

Jones resided in the same East Village apartment at 27 Cooper Square that she and LeRoi moved into in 1962.^[6] She successfully spearheaded a campaign in 2005 to save her apartment building when it was to be demolished to build a hotel.^[16]

Jones continued to teach and write.^[17] She died in Philadelphia on August 13, 2024, at the age of 90.^[3]

• How I became Hettie Jones: A Memoir
• Drive
• Big Star Fallin’ Mama -- Five Women in Black Music
• No Woman No Cry
• All Told
• Doing 70

• New School MFA in Creative Writing Archived May 21, 2018, at the Wayback Machine
• How I Became Hettie Jones
• Hettie Jones - Grove Atlantic
• Hettie Jones - Academy of American Poets
• Hettie Jones - Goddard College^{[permanent dead link‍]}
• Interview with Hettie Jones by Stephen McKiernan, Binghamton University Libraries Center for the Study of the 1960s, July 6, 2009
• Finding aid to Hettie Jones papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.