Her first collection of poems, Drive (Hanging Loose Press, 1997), was selected by Naomi Shihab Nye to receive the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. She is also the author of How I Became Hettie Jones (1990), a memoir of the beat scene of the fifties and sixties, as well as of her marriage (1958-1966) to LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka; Big Star Fallin' Mama: Five Women in Black Music (1974); and several books for children.

With LeRoi Jones she established Yugen (1957-1963), a magazine that published poetry and writings by William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Philip Whalen, and others. She also launched Totem Press, which published poets such as Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Frank O'Hara, Edward Dorn, and Gary Snyder.

She is currently involved with PEN American Center's Prison Writing committee and runs a writing workshop at the New York State Correctional Facility for Women at Bedford Hills. Hettie Jones lives in New York City, where she writes and teaches at The New School.