Richard A. Jones

RICHARD A. JONES is an African American poet and philosopher who grew up in the inner cities of Washington, D.C. and Detroit. He holds academic degrees in mathematics, computer programming, and education, and earned a Ph.D. in Philosophy. A lifelong educator, he last taught logic and philosophy at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Jones has been publishing poetry for more than fifty years, with his poetry and fiction appearing in New Letters and other literary magazines. He has also authored philosophical essays for The Journal of Black Studies and The Radical Philosophy Review. His poetics are deeply influenced by the works of Amiri Baraka and David Ray. In agreement with C.P. Snow’s The Two Cultures, Jones firmly believes that scientists informed by art and literature make better scientists, and artists learned in the sciences produce more beautiful and fundamental art. In Footnotes for a New Universe, his latest collection of poems, Jones combines whimsical musings on his racial identity and ageing with profound aesthetic struggles for meanings in a wondrously mysterious Universe.