The former Chair of PEN’s Prison Writing Committee, she currently teaches graduate writing at The New School, and a memoir workshop at the 92 nd Street Y. Hettie Joness 1990 memoir How I became Hettie Jones depicts seven years (1957-1964) of a life in and around poetry. How I Became Hettie Jones John Holmes -Most known for his work Go -Very close friend of Kerouac -The Horn (one of the most definitive jazz novels) -Person with whom kerouac was speaking when he coined the term beat Norman Mailer.

In addition to her own work, Jones has authored memoirs for Rita Marley ( No Woman No Cry) and others, and taught writing in colleges, prisons, and community settings. Jones’s short prose has been published in journals such as The Village Voice, Global City Review, Fence, and Ploughshares, and there are numerous interviews and some of her performances online. Love, H, selections from her 40-year correspondence with the sculptor Helene Dorn, appeared this past October from Duke University Press, and is available in both print and e-book editions. Drive, her first poetry collection, won the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber Award it was followed by second and third collections, All Told and Doing 70. Dutton Books, 18. The children’s books she’s written since the divorce have enjoyed a modest success, but she has yet to escape her husband’s shadow: Readers are more likely to pick up this book to read about the early career of Leroi Jones than to read the life of Hettie Cohen Jones.The Center for the Humanities Programming Participants and Collaborators Hettie Jonesīest known for How I Became Hettie Jones, her memoir of the “Beat Scene,” Hettie Jones is the author of 24 books for children and adults, including the award-winning Big Star Fallin’ Mama, Five Women in Black Music. Aware of her husband’s brilliance, she took proofreading and secretarial jobs to support their family, while yearning to be accepted as an author in her own right.

Unconsciously, Jones reveals the conflicts inherent in any relationship between artists of unequal talent. She also chronicles the hostility she encountered, first from whites and later from black nationalists, to their mixed marriage. Ultimately however, the Jones family gave Hettie acceptance, welcoming a white daughter-in-law to the family. Both of their parents were simply heartbroken to hear about them being together. In her autobiography, the children’s writer and former wife of Leroi Jones (who subsequently changed his name to Imamu Amiri Baraka) recalls the Beat scene in Greenwich Village during the ‘50s: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Franz Kline, Frank O’Hara and Billie Holiday are among the noted artists who make fleeting appearances in the text. Hettie became pregnant twice, one child aborted, the other she kept as the two wed. HOW I BECAME HETTIE JONES by Hettie Jones (Penguin: $8.95).

How i became hettie jones