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Poetry. African American Studies. "Jones is known best for her resonant memoir about the beat milieu and her marriage to Amiri Baraka (formerly LeRoi Jones), How I Became Hettie Jones (1990), but this collection of poems, her first, will establish her as a potent and fearless poet. The provocative multiplicity of meanings embodied by the title bears beautiful fruit, beginning with a strikingly original set of poems about cars and the road, including 'Hard Drive' in which Jones saucily introduces herself as both 'woman enough to be moved to tears / and man enough / to drive my car in any direction.' She does drive in any and all directions over the course of the book, writing both deeply personal and strongly political poems, all of which are utterly free of sentimentality yet warm with compassion. Jones writes 'I love / everyone today, as usual,' and it is her embracing of life, and its mirror image, death, that revs each poem up to speed, liberating us, for a sweet moment, from inertia"--Donna Seaman, Booklist.
- GenresPoetry
104 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1998
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About the author
Hettie Jones
37 books51 followersHettie Jones (born 1934 as Hettie Cohen) is best known as the first wife of Amiri Baraka, known as LeRoi Jones at the time of their marriage, but is also a writer herself.
While known for her poetry, she has received acclaim for her memoir, How I Became Hettie Jones (published 1990 by Grove Press).
Jones held various clerical jobs at Partisan Review and started the literary magazine Yugen with her husband. Jones is currently on the faculty in the graduate program in creative writing at The New School in New York City. From 1989-2002 she ran a writing workshop at the New York State Correctional Facility for Women at Bedford Hills, which included inmate Judy Clark as a student, and which published a nationally distributed collection, Aliens At The Border. Jones is a former chair of the PEN Prison Writing Committee and is currently a member of PEN's Advisory Council.
(from Wikipedia)
While known for her poetry, she has received acclaim for her memoir, How I Became Hettie Jones (published 1990 by Grove Press).
Jones held various clerical jobs at Partisan Review and started the literary magazine Yugen with her husband. Jones is currently on the faculty in the graduate program in creative writing at The New School in New York City. From 1989-2002 she ran a writing workshop at the New York State Correctional Facility for Women at Bedford Hills, which included inmate Judy Clark as a student, and which published a nationally distributed collection, Aliens At The Border. Jones is a former chair of the PEN Prison Writing Committee and is currently a member of PEN's Advisory Council.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 4, 2021
des mots de pierre
alors que
tout ce que je désirais c'était un peu de légèreté,
je voulais qu'il
cherche
à me plaire et non qu'il
me charge
de mots tirés au fusil
alors que
tout ce que je désirais c'était un peu de légèreté,
je voulais qu'il
cherche
à me plaire et non qu'il
me charge
de mots tirés au fusil
January 19, 2022
is getting over divorce
and pain so deep she has to
get loose to get better, she has to
get even.
She's working at a summer camp run by
Religion. She's 35, driving a truck,
5-speed, floor shift, 25 kids in the bed
including a farm boy, 15, from someplace
in Iowa. Come East to do his bit for
the poor kids, clock up points with
the pious. But a touch is all it takes
when he takes her hand to help her out.
She drives him to a place where no one can
see them under the stars. The grass is high,
wet with rank summer. Sweet Jesus, she
pulls him down.
* * *
Love never held my hand
like those summertime couples
palm to palm, the perfectly
interlaced fingers
the pressures
Love never flung himself
around my shoulder, or
measured my convivial waist
Love was a grandmaster though,
and he laughed when he came on
like gangbusters, who
could refuse him, ah.
I knuckled under, no regrets
but I've always wondered
* * *
you were here, as if I cared,
as if these ideas were as real
as contests and playoffs. Let's
play it off then, a little love
game, let's bring love here to
where the clear air whispers of
winning, which speaks for itself,
as if it could be, or we could be,
speaking of love
* * *
On the line in front of me
in the Long Beach bagel store
a lady had bought
one plain whole wheat
for the gulls, she says
to her friends, herself
she has butter on sweet raisin
for the lift
later the gulls lift, also,
on their plain bread
as easily
wheeling, and eating
* * *
Invocation
Blue light at eight
Fine drizzle, no bother
Fog on the river and
over all our small efforts.
Of little, murky end of winter
bathe our streets of violent ruin
Benediction
In a moment of truce
it all falls away
- loss, gain, good looks, fast steps -
In a moment of truce
the zero of silence
enters with grace
* * *
Over and over the mind returns
to the bent shoulders of the young woman
who types, over and over, the poem
until it is perfectly placed
on the page, the name
of her husband, the name
of her lover
the guilty thrill
of juxtaposition as
each gives
to the poet
what he keeps
in his pocket
in her arms she holds them
over and over
* * *
Only the messenger and me
out riding on ninety-degree
Fifth Ave. this morning a
young man shakes a stop sign
to get my attention! Is it
my hair, braided and wound,
the purple shirt, the silver
in my ears, or all these years of
dodging traffic and compliments?
Anyway happy and forty-eight now,
sweat-stained, weaving among cars, I
hope I die like this
lookin good and movin fast
and pain so deep she has to
get loose to get better, she has to
get even.
She's working at a summer camp run by
Religion. She's 35, driving a truck,
5-speed, floor shift, 25 kids in the bed
including a farm boy, 15, from someplace
in Iowa. Come East to do his bit for
the poor kids, clock up points with
the pious. But a touch is all it takes
when he takes her hand to help her out.
She drives him to a place where no one can
see them under the stars. The grass is high,
wet with rank summer. Sweet Jesus, she
pulls him down.
- She, pg. 14
* * *
Love never held my hand
like those summertime couples
palm to palm, the perfectly
interlaced fingers
the pressures
Love never flung himself
around my shoulder, or
measured my convivial waist
Love was a grandmaster though,
and he laughed when he came on
like gangbusters, who
could refuse him, ah.
I knuckled under, no regrets
but I've always wondered
- Sonnet, pg. 26
* * *
you were here, as if I cared,
as if these ideas were as real
as contests and playoffs. Let's
play it off then, a little love
game, let's bring love here to
where the clear air whispers of
winning, which speaks for itself,
as if it could be, or we could be,
speaking of love
- As If, pg. 34
* * *
On the line in front of me
in the Long Beach bagel store
a lady had bought
one plain whole wheat
for the gulls, she says
to her friends, herself
she has butter on sweet raisin
for the lift
later the gulls lift, also,
on their plain bread
as easily
wheeling, and eating
- A Day at a Time, pg. 51
* * *
Invocation
Blue light at eight
Fine drizzle, no bother
Fog on the river and
over all our small efforts.
Of little, murky end of winter
bathe our streets of violent ruin
Benediction
In a moment of truce
it all falls away
- loss, gain, good looks, fast steps -
In a moment of truce
the zero of silence
enters with grace
- Elegy for Allen, pg. 62
* * *
Over and over the mind returns
to the bent shoulders of the young woman
who types, over and over, the poem
until it is perfectly placed
on the page, the name
of her husband, the name
of her lover
the guilty thrill
of juxtaposition as
each gives
to the poet
what he keeps
in his pocket
in her arms she holds them
over and over
- Homage to Frank O'Hara's Personal Poems, pg. 73
* * *
Only the messenger and me
out riding on ninety-degree
Fifth Ave. this morning a
young man shakes a stop sign
to get my attention! Is it
my hair, braided and wound,
the purple shirt, the silver
in my ears, or all these years of
dodging traffic and compliments?
Anyway happy and forty-eight now,
sweat-stained, weaving among cars, I
hope I die like this
lookin good and movin fast
- Hotter Than July, 1982, pg. 99
March 22, 2025
"Autrefois j'avais les cheveux longs et de grands espoirs les beaux garçons allaient m'aimer pour toujours
Maintenant je suis moins naïve."
Maintenant je suis moins naïve."
September 12, 2019
As always, Hettie's poetry has a body and a sensuality and a strength. Those characteristics, though, somehow, exist between the words, in the white space, in the breath we take between them.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews