T. Harri Jones grew up in Cwm Crogau, near Llanafan, in Wales, spending his first ten years living with his shepherd grandfather. He loved books and words from a young age, and starting writing poetry as a child.
His university studies were interrupted by his service in the Royal Navy from 1941 to 1946. In 1947 he graduated from the University of Wales, gained an M.A. in 1949, and taught English from 1951-1959 at the Portsmouth Naval Dockyard. During the 1950s his poetry appeared in literary magazines such as Life and Letters, The Dublin Magazine and Dock Leaves.
Jones decided to emigrate to Australia in search of an academic position. In 1959 he was appointed lecturer in English at Newcastle College at the University of New South Wales, where he worked until his death six years later. Much of his poetry and reviews were widely published in Australia during this time, and Jones was an active member of the local literary community, giving well-attended poetry readings. He published a book of verse, The Enemy in the Heart: Poems 1946-1956 in 1957. In addition to his work as a poet, Jones also wrote a study of Dylan Thomas (1963).
Jones' poetry was mostly elegaic and often focused on the dual themes of his Welsh home, and the various stages and experiences of romantic love. The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature comments on his premature death by drowning, asserting that he 'had scarcely time to achieve the potential that his verse seemed to promise'.
The poet is commemorated in the Harri Jones Memorial poetry prize awarded annually by the University of Newcastle.
