Of Poetry, Politics and Red Clay: Ashley M. Jones

We had the pleasure of speaking with poet and educator, Ashley M. Jones. 

 Ashley M. Jones holds an MFA in Poetry from Florida International University, and she is the author of Magic City Gospel,  dark / / thing , and her upcoming collection, REPARATIONS NOW! . Her poetry has earned several awards, including the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers Award, the Silver Medal in the Independent Publishers Book Awards, the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize for Poetry, a Literature Fellowship from the Alabama State Council on the Arts, the Lucille Clifton Poetry Prize, and the Lucille Clifton Legacy Award. Her poems and essays appear in or are forthcoming at CNN, POETRY, The Oxford American, Origins Journal, The Quarry by Split This Rock, Obsidian, and many others. She teaches at the Alabama School of Fine Arts, she co-directs PEN Birmingham, and she is the founding director of the Magic City Poetry Festival.

This episode was recorded shortly after the 2020 Presidential election. So, we get into a little politics, how she found poetry and her love for her Southern heritage.

Check out Ashley's work at ashleymjones.wordpress.com.