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 ...
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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.
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Seller's Description:
SIGNED. A strong association copy between two close poet friends. Both poets had a strong relationship together with each other as instructors as well as political / prison activists. The first full collection of poems by Hettie Jones. An affectionate inscription to her good friend the Beat poet Janine Pommy Vega on the half title page. This was an intimate working copy for Janine who took the book with her to schools and prison. Her bookmarks are still attached to favorite poems that she would share. Very close to fine bright glossy stiff wraps with strong spine and clean text.
