Name: Ashley M. Jones
Hometown : Birmingham, AL
Current City: Birmingham, AL
Occupation: Creative Writing Faculty Member at Alabama School of Fine Arts, seminar instructor for the University Honors Program at UAB, Founding Director of the Magic City Poetry Festival, Board Member of the AWC, and touring poet!
Age: 27 years old
What does poetry mean to you?
Poetry means conversation, wondering, attempts at discovery, and exploration of the human condition. I started writing poetry when I was 8 years old, and I've never looked back! I find that writing poems is not only exciting for what I can do with language but also for my own exploration of history and my place in it. Lucille Clifton says that we write because we wonder, and there's just so much wondering we all do. Why not do it through poems?
Favorite poem:
My favorite poem "What the mirror said" is by my favorite poet Lucille Clifton.
"What the mirror said"
By Lucille Clifton
listen,
you a wonder.
you a city
of a woman.
you got a geography
of your own.
listen,
somebody need a map
to understand you.
somebody need directions
to move around you.
listen,
woman,
you not a noplace
anonymous
girl;
mister with his hands on you
he got his hands on
some
damn
body!
Why do you like this poem?
I love this poem because it affirms my existence, it affirms my somebody-ness. Most of us have struggled with identity and self-esteem and making a place for ourselves in this very confusing/painful/wonderful/thrilling world. This poem tells me that I'm not just a woman; I contain multitudes, an entire CITY. I am some damn body! Not only that, but it is yet another demonstration of how Clifton is able to do so much in a small space, with such small words. That's what keeps bringing me back and back and back to her work—she's so masterful with the small line, the tiny word that holds whole worlds. If you've never read her work, please hasten to it!
Recent poems of Ashley M. Jones include "I See a Smear of Animal on the Road and Mistake it for Philando Castile" and "'There Is A Bell At Morehouse College.'"