Imamu amiri baraka biography series#

Between 19, Baraka wrote three plays of astonishing originality-and pain. Writing in his 1984 вЂњAutobiography,вЂќ Jones said that вЂњDutchmanвЂќ was prompted by his desire to make his poetry feel more active he wanted his plays to move. They didnвЂ™t think of their relationship as a political statement: for them, being together meant exercising their bigger and better selves. Their attraction to one another was profound, and the Jewish girl and the black man became a couple. Hettie was drawn to his energy-and the tender love poems he wrote about her. He was small, dark-skinned, large-eyed, and ambitious, and he wanted to be a significant presence on that scene. In the mid nineteen-fifties, when she was barely in her twenties, she met Roi, as he was called. Hettie Jones began her life as Hettie Cohen, a middle-class Jewish girl from Brooklyn who loved the lives she got to know in downtown Manhattan. In it, Hettie describes the central romantic event of her young life: meeting, at a music magazine where they both worked, a young black poet named LeRoi Jones. Many people learned about HettieвЂ™s life from her 1990 memoir, вЂњHow I Became Hettie Jones.вЂќ ItвЂ™s a terrific book, because it is descriptive of social history-the Beats, the Five Spot jazz scene, etc.-without using those events to sneak in a little bitterness. But Baraka wasnвЂ™t a ghost in the Jones household HettieвЂ™s daughters spent time with his other children, in Newark, on summer holidays and so on, and I often wonder what that was like for them, as their father and mother knit together those various worlds that had been disrupted by politics or, more specifically, BarakaвЂ™s ardent belief that your body-your soul-had to reflect your radicalism, no matter the personal cost. There we learned from HettieвЂ™s example: being an artist did not preclude being human. Living could be hard, too, but sometimes, and for a long time, it could be play. Working! Art was working, and that was real. But none of these people were talked about in the hushed tones surrounding a вЂњfamousвЂќ person they were just the people the Joneses knew, and that included the poet Diane di Prima and her daughter, Dominique-вЂњour sisterвЂќ-and any number of music critics and poets and novelists to be.ДЄfter a while we all called Hettie вЂњMom,вЂќ and why not? She was our mother in every sense but the biological one she fed us good brown bread and said: вЂњGuys! IвЂ™m working!вЂќ when the games and laughter got too loud in the childrenвЂ™s room. They were friends with Kali, the child prodigy poet. The jazz saxophonist Archie Shepp was their neighbor, and he had a little boy named Accra. And one of the chief pleasures of hanging out with the Jones girls was seeing how deeply they had each otherвЂ™s backs and, if they loved you, they had yours, too.Дuring those visits, certain names came up-names IвЂ™d have to run to the library to learn something about. Rejection had not dimmed her enthusiasm for anything-especially young people. She wanted to prepare you and protect you from the hard work that was to come. If you wanted to be an artist, Hettie treated you like an adult, no matter what your age. In those and other works, Hettie set a path so sensationally followed by artists like Jacqueline Woodson today: children needed to learn about diversity because we lived in a diverse world.

Imamu amiri baraka biography series#

She wrote books for children and teen-agers, studies of race and social life, like вЂњBig Star FallinвЂ™ Mama,вЂќ a series of short portraits of titanic, genre-changing singers such as Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday. HettieвЂ™s books were as tall in subject matter as she was small in stature, but you couldnвЂ™t tell anyone who loved her that she wasnвЂ™t the tallest woman in the room. After all, by the time we met, in the nineteen-seventies, she had been supporting her children for years by writing books. And what was better than sitting near HettieвЂ™s rooftop garden drinking lemonade (with honey!)-there wasnвЂ™t a grain of refined sugar in the place-and listening to Hettie talk about where food could be gotten at a fair price or good clothes marked down, and the business of art? She knew everything there was to know about style, and survival. But HettieвЂ™s place was always a harbor and what was better than listening to the women of the house laughing at what one said or was about to say? Actually, they didnвЂ™t laugh so much as trill, like three birds sitting on a branch in sunshine.