Hettie Jones

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Hettie Jones (born 1934 as Hettie Cohen) is most well-known as the former wife of Amiri Baraka, known as LeRoi Jones at the time of their marriage, but is also a writer herself. They have two children, Kellie and Lisa.

While known for her poetry, she has received acclaim for her memoir, How I Became Hettie Jones (published 1990 by Grove Press). It tells of her marriage and relationship with Baraka and her friendships with such popular Beat generation figures as Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Frank O'Hara, Joel Oppenheimer, and Charles Olson, among others. A focal point of the work is also her struggle to find an identity, as an outcast of her white, Jewish family and wife of a black artist during the Civil Rights era.

Jones held various clerical jobs at Partisan Review and started the literary magazine Yugen with her husband.