(NEW YORK)— PEN America today mourns the death of poet Hettie Jones, a long time member of the writers organization who served as a trustee from 2001-2002, chaired the Prison Writing Committee, and for 13 years led a writing workshop at the women’s maximum-security prison at Bedford Hills, NY.
A longtime resident of the East Village, Jones died in Philadelphia at age 90 on Tuesday. Her death was reported in the Village Sun.
A native New Yorker who grew up in Queens, she wrote 23 books: three volumes of poetry and a memoir of the Beat Generation, along with books for children and young adults, including The Trees Stand Shining and Big Star Fallin’ Mama: Five Women in Black Music.
She was associated with the Beat poets, was a social justice activist and taught poetry and writing at New York University, The New School, Parsons School of Design, among others.
In the 1950s she married the poet LeRoi Jones, who later would change his name to become the Black power nationalist Amiri Baraka. Hettie Jones spoke and wrote about the bigotry and antisemitism she faced at that time both as a Jewish woman and a white woman married to a Black man.
The couple in 1957 founded a literary magazine, Yugen, and also the Totem Press, publishing works by legendary Beat writers, including Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and Williams S. Burroughs, as well as Frank O’Hara, who was part of the New York School of poets.
Later divorced, they had two daughters: Kellie Jones, a professor of art, archaeology and African American studies at Columbia University, and Lisa Jones Brown a writer who was on staff at the Village Voice for 15 years.
The family had lived at 27 Cooper Square since the early 1960s and the heyday of the Beats.
Jones had been a member of PEN America since 1986 and contributed an interview to PEN America with the incarcerated writer Charles P. Norman, who won many prizes in PEN’s Prison Writing Contest and was honored with a special award for Outstanding Excellence.
About PEN America
PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. Learn more at pen.org.