A drama major in college, Hettie Jones was a fresh graduate when she started Yugen. She was Co-editor and Co-publisher of the quarterly literary magazine from 1958 to 1962. Her partner editor and publisher in Yugen was Leroi Jones, her husband at the time. Furthermore, the couple began Totem Press, publishing poets like Diane di Prima (This Kind of Bird Flies Backward, 1958), Ron Loewinsohn (Watermelons, 1959), Michael McClure (For Artaud, 1959), and Jack Kerouac (The Scripture of the Golden Eternity, 1961).
Who are the women of the Beat Generation?
Yugen as “A New Consciousness in Arts and Letters.”
In an interview on September 10, 2014, Jones explained that “a new consciousness” in the secondary title of Yugen, “a new consciousness in arts and letters,” emphasizes “a more spiritual aspect of things” and the search for “independence and free-thinking.” She also talked about how her friendship with abstract expressionist painters fit with their work with action poetry.
COLUMBIA’S RARE BOOK & MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY ACQUIRES PAPERS OF WRITER HETTIE JONES
How I Became Hettie Jones
Hettie Jones went on to write over 20 books, multiple volumes of poetry, and an acclaimed memoir How I Became Hettie Jones. Her memoir covers her experiences as a Jewish woman, being part of the Beats Movement, her work at Yugen and Totem Press, respectively, as well as her tumultuous, interracial relationship with Leroi Jones.
Advice for young women interested in starting a magazine
HJ: The advice is: just go for it! But make sure that you have time to do it. And make sure you get advice from people who are in touch with people who are writing, or painting, or whatever. So that you have a good bit of material to choose from, and you don’t have to print every single thing that you are handed, even if you don’t really like it. And be supercritical, and take your time. Because you don’t want to say, “Well, I need to fill up a page…” and then put in it something that isn’t worthy, you know?
