Edward Smyth Jones
American poet
Edward Smyth Jones (March 1881 – 28 September 1968) was an African-American poet.
Life
Edward Smyth (sometimes spelled Smythe) Jones was born to former enslaved parents Hawk and Rebecca in Natchez, Mississippi in 1881. He attended Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Alcorn State University) for 14 months in 1902–1903, and then later moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where he published his first book of thirty poems, The Rose that Bloometh in My Heart in 1908. Jones had a lifelong desire for education, and particularly wanted to study at Harvard University. Having left Louisville for Indianapolis, Jones set out on foot (and occasionally hopping freight trains) in the summer of 1910 for Cambridge, Massachusetts. "Arriving travel-worn, friendless, moneyless, hungry, he was preparing to bivouac on the Harvard campus his first night in the University city, when, being misunderstood, and not believed, he was apprehended as a vagabond and thrown into jail."
While sitting in "Cell No. 40, East Cambridge Jail, Cambridge, Mass., July 26, 1910" Jones described his journey to Harvard and subsequent arrest in the poem "Harvard Square":
"As soon as locked within the jail,
Deep in a ghastly cell,
Methought I heard the bitter wail
Of all the fiends of hell!"
O God, to Thee I humbly pray
No treacherous prison snare
Shall close my soul within for aye
From dear old Harvard Square.
Just then I saw an holy Sprite
Shed all her radiant beams,
And round her shone the source of light
Of all the poets' dreams!
I plied my pen in sober use,
And spent each moment spare
In sweet communion with the Muse
I met in Harvard Square!"
Jones presented documentation attesting to his character, as well as his poem "Ode to Ethiopia" to arraigning judge Arthur P. Stone, and this, combined with help from the Black lawyer Clement G. Morgan and educator William H. Holtzclaw, was enough to eventually secure his release from jail. Jones went on to secure janitorial work at Harvard, and began attending Boston Latin School, but was unable to finish and enroll in Harvard College due to lack of funds.
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This entry incorporates text from “Edward Smyth Jones” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.