Alabama’s newest poet laureate is the youngest person to ever hold the title

Ashley presents to an audience in Miami.

PHOTO BY CHRISTINA FRIGO

POETIC JUSTICE

Recently named Poet Laureate of Alabama is the first woman of color, as well as the youngest person ever, to receive the honor.

Ashley M. Jones has a way with words. It’s evident in her schooling—she holds a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from Florida International University, where she also was a John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Fellow. In Florida, she served as the official poet for the City of Sunrise’s Little Free Libraries initiative.

It’s evident in her accolades, too. In 2014, her work was recognized in the Poets and Writers Maureen Egen Writer’s Exchange contest, as well as at the 2015 Academy of American Poets contest at Florida International. She’s been a finalist at the Hub City Press New Southern Voices contest, Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award Contest, and the National Poetry Series. In 2016, she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Oh, but there’s more: Ashley’s work has been published on CNN and Academy of American Poets and in Harvard Kennedy School Journal of African American Policy and Lucid Moose Lit’s Like a Girl: Perspectives on Feminine Identity.

Her resume of accomplishments lists awards (Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award, B-Metro Fusion Award); author (Magic City Gospel, for which she won a silver medal in poetry from the Independent Publishers Book Awards, and dark // thing, which garnered a Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize for Poetry); and faculty member in the Alabama School of Fine Arts’ Creative Writing Department, as well as a core faculty member at the low residency MFA program at Converse College. A Birmingham native, Ashley returned to her hometown several years ago and founded the Magic City Poetry Festival, where she currently serves as director. Her latest book, Reparations Now!, was released last month.

And now her way with words is evident to the entire state—as if it wasn’t already—in her latest appointment as Poet Laureate of Alabama, a position she will hold for the next four years (2022-2026). Ashley is the first person of color and youngest person ever to hold the title and will spend her time visiting schools, libraries, and other institutions around the state, as well as lecturing, reading poetry, and conducting workshops locally and nationally.

We could go on—and we do, online. Read the full article and learn much more about Ashley and plans for her term as state Poet Laureate at bhamfamily.com.