- unitid
-
{"value"=>"185465", "type"=>"local_mss"}
{"value"=>"Sc MG 975", "type"=>"local_call"}
{"value"=>"b22744859", "type"=>"local_b"}
- unitdate
-
{"value"=>"1970s-2010s", "type"=>"inclusive", "normal"=>"1970/2019"}
- unittitle
-
{"value"=>"Patricia Spears Jones papers"}
- physdesc
-
{"format"=>"structured", "physdesc_components"=>[{"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"57 boxes", "unit"=>"containers"}, {"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"23.42 linear feet", "unit"=>"linear_feet"}, {"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"20 computer files", "unit"=>"computer_files"}, {"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"21.4 megabytes", "unit"=>"megabytes"}]}
- repository
-
{"value"=>"<span class=\"corpname\">Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division</span>"}
- abstract
-
{"value"=>"Patricia Spears Jones (born in 1951 in Forrest City, Arkansas) is a Black American poet, playwright, writer, educator, editor, and publisher. Her papers date from the 1970s to the 2010s, and chronicle Jones' career and personal life through correspondence; publishing contracts; drafts of poems; notebooks; ephemera; interviews; press clippings; photographs; and recorded poetry readings and performances. The collection illuminates her development as a social justice and environmental activist through her work as a poet, educator, volunteer, and non-profit development officer and administrator."}
- langmaterial
-
{"value"=>"English"}
- origination
-
{"value"=>"Jones, Patricia Spears, 1955-", "type"=>"persname"}
- bioghist
-
{"value"=>"<p>Patricia Spears Jones (born in 1951 in Forrest City, Arkansas) is a Black American poet, playwright, writer, editor, and publisher. She spent her childhood in Forrest City, Arkansas, and graduated from Rhodes College in 1973 with a bachelor's degree in communication arts.</p> <p>Jones moved to New York City in 1974, and started her literary career writing popular culture reviews for <span class=\"title\">The Village Voice</span> and <span class=\"title\">SoHo Weekly News</span>, publishing her literary magazine <span class=\"title\">W. B.</span>, and co-publishing and co-editing a women's poetry anthology, <span class=\"title\">Ordinary Women</span> (1978). She also published poems in small magazines such as <span class=\"title\">Telephone</span>, <span class=\"title\">The World</span>, <span class=\"title\">HooDoo</span>, and <span class=\"title\">Out There</span>, as well as Poetry Project-based journals. Her poems were reprinted in well-known literary journals <span class=\"title\">Callaloo</span>, <span class=\"title\">conditions</span>, <span class=\"title\">Kenyon Review</span>, <span class=\"title\">The American Voice</span>, and <span class=\"title\">The Black Scholar</span>. Jones worked as an administrator and development officer for a number of non-profit organizations, such as the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church, the Coordinating Council on Literary Magazines, Mabou Mines, and Heresies Collective. In 1980, Telephone Books published Jones' chapbook, <span class=\"title\">Mythologizing Always: Seven Sonnets</span>.</p> <p>In 1992, Jones graduated from Vermont College of Fine Arts with an MFA in Writing after studying with Lynda Hull, David Rivard, and Mark Doty. Her first full-length volume of poetry, <span class=\"title\">The Weather That Kills</span>, was published by Coffee House Press in 1995. In addition to her non-profit work, Jones taught several poetry workshops around the United States. She was a guest faculty member at Parsons School of Design and Sarah Lawrence College. Jones also collaborated on many creative projects, including a performance piece, <span class=\"title\">Women in Research</span> (1980), and a play, <span class=\"title\">Mother</span>, which was commissioned by Mabou Mines and premiered at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in 1994.</p> <p>Jones has served as a member, and sometimes director, of several non-profit boards and committees. She served as a panelist on the New York State Council on the Arts Literature Panel, and as a juror for several poetry contests, including the Mentor Series Project of The Loft Minneapolis, the New York Foundation on the Arts Poetry Panel, and the Judith's Room Poetry Contest.</p> <p>In addition to <span class=\"title\">The Weather That Kills</span>, Jones' other volumes of poetry include <span class=\"title\">Femme du Monde</span> (2006) and <span class=\"title\">Painkiller</span> (2010), as well as several chapbooks. Her work has been widely anthologized and she has received several awards including a Pushcart Prize, William Carlos Williams Prize, Barbara Deming Memorial Fund Award, and the Jackson Poetry Prize. She has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and New York Foundation for the Arts and held a variety of fellowships, including at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts (VCCA) and Yaddo.</p>"}
- scopecontent
-
{"value"=>"<p>The Patricia Spears Jones papers recount her professional and personal activities from the 1970s to the 2010s. While the papers largely focus on Jones' career as a Black poet, writer, editor, and publisher, they also contain material generated from her work in the non-profit sector and personal life. The papers illustrate Jones' development as a poet and writer, and growth as an environmental and social justice activist.</p> <p>The collection is arranged into three Series that includes Writing, Publishing, and Collaborative Projects; Non-profit Work, Memberships, and Affiliations; and Personal.</p>"}
{"value"=>"<p class='list-head'>The Patricia Spears Jones papers are arranged in three series:</p>\n<ul class='arrangement series-descriptions'>\n<li><div class='series-title'><a href='/scm/185465#c1672753'>Series I: Writing, Publishing, and Collaborative Projects</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1970s-2010s</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series, dating from the 1970s to the 2010s, is comprised of materials related to Jones' career as a poet, writer, playwright, editor, and publisher. Most of the material depicts Jones' efforts to publish and promote her poetry. Correspondence regarding publishing poems, applications for grant funds and residencies, annotated and revised poems, and ephemera from poetry readings and interviews are well represented in the series. Professional and personal correspondence often overlaps, because Jones' personal and professional lives are interwoven.</p> <p>Jones' growth as a poet and activist appears in the progression of her poetry's content and form. The revised manuscripts and poems from Jones' full-length volumes of poetry, <span class=\"title\">The Weather That Kills</span> (1995), <span class=\"title\">Femme du Monde</span> (2006), and <span class=\"title\">PainKiller</span> (2010), as well as poems from her chapbooks, <span class=\"title\">Mythologizing Always: 7 Sonnets</span> (1981), <span class=\"title\">Swimming to America</span> (2011), <span class=\"title\">Living in the Love Economy</span> (2014), and the collection, <span class=\"title\">A Lucent Fire: New and Select Poems</span> (2015) impart this growth. Of note are the correspondence, poems, and manuscript of <span class=\"title\">Key of Permanent Blue</span> (1993), the precursor to <span class=\"title\">The Weather That Kills</span>. Jones' labor to publish <span class=\"title\">Femme du Monde</span> is detailed through correspondence with various publishers; poem revisions and annotations; drafts of the volume; drafts of the publishing contract; and ephemera associated with the volume's release and promotion.</p> <p>Lynda Hull, David Rivard, and Mark Doty were Jones' advisors when she was a graduate student at Vermont College of Norwich University. She maintained all of their letters and feedback from her graduate years, as well as correspondence, course materials, notebooks, poems, newsletters, and copies of her thesis.</p> <p>Jones' grants and fellowships to Squaw Valley Community of Writers, Millay Colony, Yaddo, and Virginia Center for Creative Arts are exhibited in correspondence and ephemera from her residencies. She retained correspondence, programs, flyers, and brochures from her work as a panelist, moderator, and/or speaker at various events such as literary conferences, workshops, and festivals. Jones participated in many local and national interviews about poetry and art that are represented in sound recordings. There are other interviews that Jones conducted with artists and poets, such as June Jordan, for essays that she wrote for various magazines.</p> <p>Jones kept correspondence, biographical notes, poems, and ephemera affiliated with the publication and twenty-five-year celebration of <span class=\"title\">Ordinary Women</span> (1978). The <span class=\"title\">Ordinary Women</span> correspondence includes letters to and from the contributors to the anthology, such as Akua Lezli Hope, Helen Wong Huie, and Frances Chung, as well as Adrienne Rich, who wrote the introduction.</p> <p>The series also takes account of Jones' work as a writer and playwright. It features essays and popular culture reviews that Jones wrote for <span class=\"title\">Bomb Magazine</span>, <span class=\"title\">The Village Voice</span>, and <span class=\"title\">Essence Magazine</span>. Jones preserved notes, a video recording, press clippings, programs, and drafts of the Mabou Mines commissioned play, <span class=\"title\">Mother</span> (1994). Jones' collaboration on other creative projects, such as the performance piece, <span class=\"title\">Women in Research</span> (1980), and Mabou Mines site-specific work, <span class=\"title\">Song for New York</span> (2007) are also rendered in the series.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/scm/185465#c1672897'>Series II: Non-profit Work, Memberships, and Affiliations</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1975-2010s</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series, dating from 1975 to the 2010s, relates to Jones' career as a development officer, administrator, board member, advisor, educator, and consultant of various non-profit organizations. Materials in the series include board meeting minutes; correspondence; fundraiser programs; radio programs created by Mabou Mines; event ephemera; juror packets; and fundraising proposals and coursework.</p> <p>The majority of the files consist of Jones' work as a development officer, administrator, and consultant at non-profit arts organizations, such as the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines, and the Poetry Project. There are some annotated papers related to Jones' work as a panelist and juror of poetry contests, fellowships, and festivals. Jones retained syllabi, coursework, and correspondence from poetry workshops she taught at Sarah Lawrence College, Parsons School for Design, Naropa University Summer Writing Program, The Poetry Project, and Cave Canem. This series also recounts Jones' participation in social justice organizations, including the Women's Action Coalition and the Black Earth Institute.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/scm/185465#c1672956'>Series III: Personal</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1970s-2010s</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series, dating from the 1970s to the 2010s, constitutes material from Jones' personal life. The bulk of the files consist of personal photographs and correspondence, as well as programs from theater, music, and poetry events Jones attend from the 1970s to the 2000s.</p> <p>The files detail Jones' observations of the world through sketches, diary entries, and early poems in notebooks, journals, and correspondence. The series hold photographs and guestbooks that give an account of Jones' friends and aquantainces attending her annual tea party and birthday celebrations. Jones retained calendars, telephone messages, and events ephemera that delineate her daily schedule from 1977 to 2013. The events ephemera recount Jones' presence at various music concerts, plays, musicals, and museums around the world. Some commercial music recordings gifted from friends, or compiled by Jones, appear in the series.</p> <p>Of note are photographs from Jones' early years in New York City, <span class=\"title\">Ordinary Woman</span> celebration, residencies, birthday parties, and travels; journals and notebooks containing observations of society, politics, and poems; and correspondence with Jodi Braxton, William Allen, Thulani Davis, Jane Dickson, Akua Lezli Hope, Maureen Owen, Nathalie Schmidt, and family members.</p></div></li></ul>\n", "type"=>"arrangement"}
- acqinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Purchased from Patricia Spears Jones in 2021.</p>"}
- separatedmaterial
-
{"value"=>"<p>Audio and moving image materials were separated from the papers and transferred to The Schomburg Center's Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division.</p>"}
- processinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Processed by <span class=\"name\">Amy Lau</span> in <span class=\"date\">2022</span>.</p>"}
- accessrestrict
-
{"value"=>"<p>Sound and video recordings transferred to the Moving Image and Recorded Sound (MIRS) Division: audio and moving image materials. For more information, please contact the division at schomburgaudiovisual@nypl.org or 212-491-2270.</p>"}
- date_start
-
1970
- keydate
-
1970
- date_end
-
2019
- date_inclusive_start
-
1970
- date_inclusive_end
-
2019
- extent_statement
-
23.42 linear feet (57 boxes); 21.4 megabytes (20 computer files)
- prefercite
-
{"value"=>"[Item], Patricia Spears Jones papers, Sc MG 975, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library"}