Hettie Jones with Bob Holman

Poet Hettie Jones has written 23 books that include a memoir of the Beat Generation, three volumes of poetry, and publications for children and young adults, including The Trees Stand Shining and Big Star Fallin’ Mama: Five Women in Black Music. Jones is a longtime editor and has taught poetry, fiction, and memoir at many universities, including Penn State University, NYU, the 92nd Street Y, University of Wyoming, and Parsons School of Design. Jones has also received grants to begin a writing program on Manhattan’s Lower East Side at the Lower East Side Girls Club Center for Community. Her book, Love, H, a selection from 40 years of correspondence with the sculptor Helene Dorn, was published by Duke University Press in October 2016.

An American poet and poetry activist, Bob Holman is equal parts spoken word performer, professor, impresario, activist, proprietor of the Bowery Poetry Club, filmmaker and host of Language Matters (2015 Documentary of the Year, Berkeley Film Festival), and beyond. From slam to hip-hop, from performance to spoken word, he’s been a central figure in redefining poetry as it exists on, off, and beyond the page. Author of 17 poetry collections, he was described by Henry Louis Gates Jr. in The New Yorker as “the postmodern promoter who has done more to bring poetry to cafes and bars than anyone since Ferlinghetti.” Bob is a contributor of the Brooklyn Rail. His two recent books, The UnSpoken and Life Poem (both YBK/Bowery Books, 2019), were written fifty years apart.