title: Love, H: The Letters of Helene Dorn and Hettie Jones
author: Hettie Jones
description: <div>&quot;<i>Love, H</i> is a very tender correspondence, augmented by Jones&rsquo;s running commentary between two deeply loyal &#39;no nonsense&#39; friends, both strong women, artists, mothers. This delicate weave runs adjacent to the lives and dynamics of the New American Poetry and its inspired players. The affinities create a jazz track of quotidian life, literary and visual art talk, heartbreak, survival, politics, social justice, and illuminating details from place: traveling from Colchester (UK) and Gloucester to the Lower East Side. This is a wonderful addition to Hettie Jones&rsquo;s memoir <i>How I Became Hettie Jones</i>. This is one for the Archive.&quot;</div> (Anne Waldman, Poet, Artistic Director of the Kerouac School Summer Writing Program)<br /><br /><div>&quot;<i>Love, H</i>, a lucid compendium of epistles, postcards, and e-mails, depicts an intimate account of the lives and minds of two artists. The straightforward acumen of Beat poet Hettie Jones (New York City) and sculptor Helene Dorn (Gloucester) cumulate into a poignant dialogue that critiques and probes a unique body of shared feelings during the post-Beat movement and its legacy. <i>Love, H</i> is life on the page. The day to day, with gaps and silences, portrays a psychological and spiritual map of these two speakers who aptly refer to the post-Beat landscape as Boyland. These pages of joy and pain add up to more than two full hearts and minds caught at a turning point in America. Two friends sort out the fray. Their playful certainty embodies wisdom. Lively, and at times even taciturn, the two give us a shared truth as witnesses. This correspondence of more than forty years is personal and political, and without trying creates a collage of experience that grows into an American portrait.&quot;</div> (Yusef Komunyakaa, author of <i>The Emperor of Water Clocks: Poems</i>)<br /><br /><div>&quot;<i>Love, H</i> reveals the struggles and contradictions of being an aspiring female artist, a wife, and a mother during the tumultuous sixties. Here are two cool &#39;chicks&#39;&mdash;in this case writer Hettie Jones and painter Helene Dorn&mdash;running in the highly competitive, male-dominated, bohemian circles of New York/San Francisco/&amp; Beyond. It&rsquo;s a gritty and seductive world, referred to by Jones as &#39;Boyland,&#39; where smart, creative women are expected to be seen but not heard. These candid letters&mdash;framed by Hettie Jones&rsquo;s own eloquent and insightful recollections&mdash;are a deeply moving ode to friendship, as well as a window to an incredible time of conflict, social change, and artistic flourishing in America.&quot;</div> (Jessica Hagedorn)<br /><br /><div>&quot;This moving portrait of a friendship has much to offer those with an interest in the lives of women writers and artists.&quot;</div> (<i>Publishers Weekly</i> 2016-06-13)<br /><br /><div>&quot;What does emerge is an inkling of the friendship, understanding, and empathy between the two women who saw themselves as &#39;Babes in Boyland.&#39;... A fertile trove....&quot;</div> (<i>Kirkus Reviews</i> 2016-07-19)<br /><br /><div>&quot;[T]his book makes an important contribution to the growing literature on women in the Beat Generation.&quot;</div> (William Gargan <i>Library Journal</i> 2016-11-01)<br /><br /><div>&quot;This captivating chronicle of a free wheeling dialogue between two phenomenal women resonates with depth, support and mature self-awareness. More then a fascinating record of contemporary friendship, Hettie Jones and Helene Dorn personify brave, full artistic lives enriched by their enduring platonic love.&quot;<br> &nbsp;</div> (Ilka Scobie <i>American Book Review</i> 2017-05-01)
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  [Start Reading](index_split_001.html#filepos1006)
  
  
  [About Take Six Girls](index_split_058.html#filepos996601)
  
  
  [About Laura Thompson](index_split_060.html#filepos1001084)
  
  
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  [Table of Contents](index_split_002.html#filepos1102)
  
  
  [ ](index_split_063.html#filepos1005535)[
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  To Louis, the well-beloved
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Contents
  
  
  > [Cover](001.html#a0)
  
  > [Welcome Page](index_split_000.html#filepos109)
  
  > [Dedication](index_split_001.html#filepos1006)
  
  > [The Mitford Family Tree](index_split_003.html#filepos3565)
  
  > [The Mitford Phenomenon](index_split_004.html#filepos3825)
  
  > [PART I](index_split_005.html#filepos65552)
  
  > [PART II](index_split_006.html#filepos261580)
  
  > [PART III](index_split_007.html#filepos468446)
  
  > [PART IV](index_split_008.html#filepos646657)
  
  