Contemporary Authors

• Magic City Gospel: Poems Hub City Press (Spartanburg SC), 2017

Library of Congress Online Catalog 1. Magic city gospel : poems LCCN 2016029313 Type of material Book Personal name Jones, Ashley M., 1990- author. Uniform title Poems. Selections Main title Magic city gospel : poems / Ashley M. Jones. Published/Produced Spartanburg SC : Hub City Press, 2017. Projected pub date 1111 Description pages cm ISBN 9781938235269 CALL NUMBER PS3610.O595 A6 2017 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ONLINE CATALOG Library of Congress 101 Independence Ave., SE Washington, DC 20540 Questions? Ask a Librarian: https://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/ask-contactus.html

• see jane write - http://seejanewritebham.com/2016/11/poet-ashley-m-jones-discusses-debut-book-magic-city-gospel/

  Poet Ashley M. Jones discusses her debut book “Magic City Gospel”
  November 28, 2016
  ashley-jones
  Photo by Jennifer Jones

  When Birmingham-bred poet Ashley Jones was in graduate school at Florida International University, she made a promise to herself: She promised herself that she would produce a book of poetry by the end of her MFA program. Jones kept her promise and on Friday, December 2 she will host a reading, book signing and early release party for her debut collection Magic City Gospel. The poems in the collection, which officially releases in January, are largely inspired by Jones’ experiences as a black girl and woman in the South. This special early release event will be held at 7 p.m., Friday, December 2 at the Alabama School of Fine Arts in downtown Birmingham.

  Jones burst onto the poetry scene last year winning the prestigious Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award (a national literary award only given to six women each year that includes a grant for $30,000). Last year Jones also returned to Birmingham to teach creative writing at the Alabama School of Fine Arts (ASFA) and this year began teaching at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) as well.

  But Jones believes poetry should be in the community and not just the classroom. She recently helped produce the 100,000 Poets for Change in Birmingham event to raise money for the Smithfield-Dynamite Hill Community Land Trust, which works to keep the Smithfield Community in the ownership of its residents and fight against gentrification. She’s also coordinator of The Nitty Gritty Magic City Reading Series. The brainchild of Alabama poets Katherine Webb and Daniel DeVaughn, NGMC seeks to create a unique literary space in Birmingham where people can tell their stories through their art.

  In a candid conversation, Jones discusses Magic City Gospel, her writing practice, writing as a form of activism and more.

  magic-city-gospel-cover

  Many of the poems included in Magic City Gospel were originally written for graduate school assignments. Tell us a bit about the process of compiling these class assignments into a complete work.

  It sounds super un-glamorous to tell people that Magic City Gospel started as simply an assignment—that is, people like to think that every work of art is plucked from a magical stroke of lightning or something, but as is the case for many of us who had to write a book for our graduate thesis, MCG was the product of three years of hard poetry work in the MFA program at Florida International University. The making of the pieces was fun, above all else. Yes, I was completing homework assignments, but I was also discovering a new voice. Each prompt challenged me to throw some Ashley sauce on whatever I was told to do. Sonnet? Throw some Ashley on it. Villanelle? Put a little Ashley behind its ears. Love poem? Write it about a love for Alabama, for my family, for Gregory Hines. So, although each assignment was different, each piece was a method for me to dig deeper into my own poetic identity, and because that was the driving force behind everything I did, mostly every piece I wrote spoke to the same themes. When it was time to compile everything, I selected 50 pieces that all spoke the same language, and, believe it or not, most of the pieces I wrote were fluent in Ashley, and I just had to weed out the ones that weren’t as strong. I wrote some new pieces, too, but mostly I used the work that I’d toiled over during the first two years of my graduate program. I’m a big believer in a student’s ability to create their own educational narrative, using every experience and every lesson to build the knowledge-bank, the creative body of work, the critical vocabulary they hope to have by the end of it. That’s how I treated (and still treat) school, and that’s why my thesis/book-making process was so organic. Everything worked together because that was the mindset I put myself in before I even stepped one toe in the graduate classroom. My mind was ready. I try to tell my students that their homework (creative or critical), can be useful for more than the grade, too—I want them to think about their education as a narrative they’re building rather than a one-off for 100 points. Then they, too, can reach those unreachable goals—writing a book, becoming a scholar, etc.

  We have to announce ourselves to the world, and, in that declaration, we tell those who have refused to hear us that we will be heard. – Ashley M. Jones

  Magic City Gospel is based on your experiences as a black woman in the South. Can you speak a bit about why it’s so important for women to share their stories — whether through poetry or prose?

  I could speak forever about that. I am a HUGE believer in the power of a story. Marginalized people (women, POC, LGBTQ+, etc.) are often left out of stories or misrepresented in the Great White Male Histories we are taught and surrounded by in our patriarchal, colonial society. Because of this erasure, it is vital that women and other Others tell their unique stories—we have to create space for ourselves and for those who come after us. We have to announce ourselves to the world, and, in that declaration, we tell those who have refused to hear us that we will be heard, and we make connections to other people who feel like their stories aren’t being told. I can still remember how thrilling it was to read the poem “Harriet Tubman” by Eloise Greenfield. I was seven years old, just getting over a fear of black oppression that hit me pretty hard at age three (see my poem “The First Time I Heard About Slavery” in my book), and the prospect of a Black female author singing the praises of a Black female hero set me ablaze like nothing had before. I was affirmed in my little black girl body, and for the thirty seconds or so it took me to recite the piece in my second grade classroom (see my poem “Recitation” published at Connotation Press) was enough to make me feel big, important, beautiful, smart, and all the rest. If that story hadn’t been told, I wouldn’t have had that moment. If Lucille Clifton had never celebrated Black womanness the way she did, I might not have recognized my own magic and my own ability to spin something special with words. These words and stories create something like a mirror: I saw myself staring back, powerful and validated in all the poems and books I love, and I was empowered to create a mirror for other word-loving weird Black girls out there. If one person stumbles across my work and says “I understand that; that speaks to my life,” I’ve done my job.

  ashley-reading

  Do you think that teaching writing (at ASFA and UAB) helps to improve your own writing, too?

  YES. Working with students has always fueled my creative life in ways other activities simply cannot. First, there’s the accountability teaching provides you—you’re being trusted to teach students something you know and do (presumably you do it well), and I can’t securely stand in front of any students, telling them to write and explore when I’m not doing it. I want to be some sort of example to them, and I want my writing to be an active practice they can see. Then, there’s the sheer amount of talent you encounter as a teacher—seeing some of the creative and critical work my students come up with absolutely blows my mind and makes me want to take to the page to create something, too. My students laugh out loud at my marginal commentary because it’s often something like “yaaaaaaaaaas line break” or “#done with your brilliance,” but I am honestly amazed by some of the turns of phrase or critical arguments I encounter. But there’s also the joy that teaching brings me that makes me excited to keep doing what I’m doing. I am truly happy interacting with, learning with, and teaching every single student I’m blessed to call mine. That happiness trickles into my poem-making place and makes me want to write. That said, I am often too tired to sit for hours and write, but the desire is a huge part of my practice. If I can store up some warm fuzzies in my teaching and community service, I’ll be ready to bust out a poem when the time comes.
  ashley-reading-2
  Photo by Anamaria Santiago

  Speaking of community service, do you believe writing can be a form of activism?

  Writing is often my form of activism. I think it’s important to be an activist in the best way you can, and for me, including my artform in that activist effort is natural and effective. I’m a huge believer in writing when you have something to say—artists are, after all, history’s most accurate reporters. We read literature to understand the times, and these are my times, so I’m writing to tell how it is and to attempt to understand it. Sometimes people won’t understand an issue until they hear it presented in a poem. Sometimes, the act of standing in a Black body and amplifying the voice society so often tries to take away is powerful, political, and necessary. I write a lot about history (and the present, which will one day be history) because knowing what happened is part of stopping it from happening again. I think it’s sad that some people don’t think writing is an active form of activism—no, sitting at a computer is not the same as standing, walking, shouting at a rally, but writing is also a voice. In Miami, I participated in a poetry protest led by the inimitable Dr. Donna Aza Weir-Soley, and we read poetry—poetry!!!—in protest of the unjust killings of Black men like Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin. We drew a crowd, we made the news, and we awakened some people. We empowered ourselves, too—that’s part of being an activist, feeling powerful in your own body and in your own voice.
  Ashley Jones
  Photo by Katherine Webb-Hehn

  What are some of the best ways a writer can improve her craft?

  Well, one of the best ways to improve is to practice. Practice doesn’t just mean sitting at the page and forcing out a bunch of bad poems until you land on a good one. I mean, yes, that’s certainly part of it, but there’s also experiencing the other parts of the craft—going to readings, meeting other writers, taking classes, reading, reading, reading. A lot of writers will say those things—read, go to readings, write, but it’s super important for writers to realize that there is no one-size-fits-all to honing one’s craft. For example, a lot of teachers and writers will just say, plainly, read every day and write every day. But what if that doesn’t’ work for you? Does that make you a bad writer? No! I, personally, have a very short attention span. I have to be doing a lot of things, sometimes things that have nothing to do with writing, in order to stay sane and able to even want to write. So, no, I don’t write every day (gasp!)—not creatively, anyway. Obviously I’m writing lesson plans, PowerPoints, emails, letters of recommendation, random notes, etc, but I’m not forcing myself to write every single day. If I don’t feel like writing, guess what—you will not find me at the computer, weeping into a blank page. If I’m in a writing mood, I’m writing and writing and writing and bugging my mom with all the new poems I’ve written. If I’m stuck, I’ll dive into something else—I’ll binge-watch my favorite telenovelas (La Fea Mas Bella and now Celia!), I’ll listen to music (little known fact—I LOVE music, and I sing along very loudly when I’m not around students), I’ll shop, I’ll cook something, I’ll talk to my mom, I’ll read whatever my super-poetic Facebook Timeline has posted. The point is, honing one’s craft doesn’t always look the same for each writer. It doesn’t have to. And, contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to be completely “writing is bae I would never be able to live if I couldn’t write and anyone who comes between me and my books will catch these hands” in order to be a poem-loving, excited about words, can snuggle up with a book and a cup of tea with the best of them kind of person. Practice writing, yes—read books, listen to writers talk about writing, take classes if you can, write (model poems after published authors, free write, try out forms, invent a form, revise work, get lost in language). But, also practice living, because you’ll have no material if you aren’t living your real life and experiencing all of the beautiful non-writing things that life can offer. Now, I hope folks don’t come for me with pitchforks for saying what I said, but I have receipts for my process. It works for me. It gets me results, and I’m a happy writer because I’m living my writing life the way I want to. #sorrynotsorry

• author's site - https://ashleymichellejones.wordpress.com/

  ABOUT

  IMG_1312

  Ashley M. Jones received an MFA in Poetry from Florida International University (FIU), where she was a John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Fellow. She served as Official Poet for the City of Sunrise, Florida’s Little Free Libraries Initiative from 2013-2015, and her work was recognized in the 2014 Poets and Writers Maureen Egen Writer’s Exchange Contest and the 2015 Academy of American Poets Contest at FIU. She was also a finalist in the 2015 Hub City Press New Southern Voices Contest, the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award Contest, and the National Poetry Series. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in many journals and anthologies, including the Academy of American Poets, Tupelo Quarterly, Prelude, Steel Toe Review, Fjords Review, Quiet Lunch, Poets Respond to Race Anthology, Night Owl, The Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, pluck!, Valley Voices: New York School Edition, Fjords Review: Black American Edition, PMSPoemMemoirStory (where her work was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2016), Kinfolks Quarterly, Tough Times in America Anthology, and Lucid Moose Press’ Like a Girl: Perspectives on Femininity Anthology. She received a 2015 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award and a 2015 B-Metro Magazine Fusion Award. She was an editor of PANK Magazine. Her debut poetry collection, Magic City Gospel, was published by Hub City Press in January 2017, and it won the silver medal in poetry in the 2017 Independent Publishers Book Awards. She currently lives in Birmingham, Alabama, where she is a board member of the Alabama Writers’ Conclave , co-coordinator of the Nitty Gritty Magic City Reading Series, and a faculty member in the Creative Writing Department of the Alabama School of Fine Arts.

• steel toe review - https://steeltoereview.com/2016/04/27/three-poems-by-ashley-m-jones/

  Three Poems by Ashley M. Jones
  Posted on April 27, 2016 by streditors
  Addie, Carole, Cynthia, Denise

  Amen, Alabama.
  Bring in the Dixie sun,
  cover us in the
  delicate, glassy sunshine
  erupting all over.
  Find us, fevered, in the
  glen, Jones Valley.
  Have you seen the churches with windows stained?
  Infinite steeples,
  just turn any corner. Do you
  know how we bleed, like Jesus?
  Loud vibrato
  melting the Sunday sky,
  new mercies exploding, dynamite,
  over our brown bodies.
  Pretty little ones, dressed in lace, beneath
  quivering old ones in hose and hats.
  Remember how 16th Street shook,
  symphony of fiery coughs
  that turned our Birmingham to blood.
  Under what God’s hand did we die like this?

  Villains, victors, what did you see?
  Wa wa watermelon, a chorus of coons,
  X’s on the eyes, a grim cartoon?
  Y’all come back now, hear?
  Zippety do dah till the day you die.

  Salat Behind Al’s Mediterranean and American Food

  This evening, in Birmingham,
  when I’m meeting a friend
  for fried chicken
  and poetry,
  you prostrate before God
  on a piece of cardboard box
  in the back alley.
  Beside you, there is a dumpster
  whispering styrofoam
  and onion skins.
  The shells of dead cockroaches
  bend and crackle
  under your knees. Even they pray.
  The backdoor of the restaurant
  and the towering
  University Parking Deck
  shelter you in shadow.
  Fifteen minutes from now,
  you will bring me cheap fries
  and fingers,
  and when you ask me
  if I’d like ketchup,
  your accent heavy as oil,
  it sounds like a proverb—
  clean tomato,
  sovereign God.

  Rammer Jammer

  George Wallace Stands in the Schoolhouse Door -June 11, 1963

  Between the thighs
  of the doorway,
  you are powerful.
  The confetti of camera clicks
  and your smart business suit
  and the swamp of teenaged protesters
  swaddle you with sweat.
  June in Alabama is rife with heat.
  Important men
  from Washington have come
  to clear you out.
  Tension,
  thick and bitter
  as a watermelon rind.
  From the doorway,
  you see Vivian and James
  waiting in the government car.
  They wish to register here.
  From the doorway,
  you see walls and waves of
  ballot-faced whites.
  They are checkmarks
  in the next election.
  It is only after
  your speech is delivered
  that you realize how thirsty you are—
  your cottonmouth
  is unbecoming
  for a state leader.
  How nice it would be
  to sit on your porch
  with Lurleen and a glass of sweet tea.
  How nice it would be
  to get out of this heat
  and out of Tuscaloosa
  and back to marbled Montgomery
  and its halls that echo—
  obedient, loud, and white.

  Ashley Jones headshotAshley M. Jones earned an MFA in Poetry from Florida International University, where she was a John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Fellow. Her work has been published in various journals nationwide, and she was a 2015 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award Recipient. Her debut collection, Magic City Gospel is forthcoming from Hub City Press in 2017. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama, where she teaches creative writing at the Alabama School of Fine Arts.

• origins journal - http://www.originsjournal.com/more-interviews/2017/4/19/ashley-m-jones-the-magic-city-poet

  An Interview by Jennifer Maritza-McCauley

  I’ve known Ashley as a friend and writer for some time, and I’ve always admired her generosity, commitment to the craft, activism, and mesmerizing grasp of language. In her newest collection Magic City Gospel, Jones explores the joys, complexities and ghosts of Birmingham, and her experiences as a black woman growing up in Alabama. Jones’s unique voice electrifies, teaches, consoles and motivates readers to action.

  Jones is receiving the praise she deserves. Publisher’s Weekly has called Magic City Gospel “…a terrific debut collection, exhibiting pride of place as well as unflinching honesty about the traumas of its historical legacy…” Edwidge Danticat, in The New Yorker, thought Jones’s “carefully crafted, insightful…elegiac words…” was a salve from tumultuous political discourse. Jones was also a finalist in the Hub City Press New Southern Voices Contest, the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award Contest, and the National Poetry Series. She received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award in 2015.

  Here, we discuss Jones’s origins as a writer, finding a poetic voice, Southern history and her influences, among other topics.

  ORIGINS

  Our journal is interested in your "origins," i.e. where you’ve come from and where you want to go as a writer and individual. Would you talk a bit about how you became invested in creative writing, and poetry in particular?

  JONES

  My origins…what an interesting question. I think creative writing has always been a part of my life. My mom taught me how to read and write when I was very young (three, I think), and creation and learning were always encouraged in our household. I was reading lots of books and getting excited about art from the beginning. I started writing “books” in second grade—I use quotations because they were handmade with my little drawings, laminated, and tied together with yarn. Our gifted teacher had us to write a lot of those, and I decided, then, that writing and making books was something I really liked. Poetry sort of popped up after that—I recently found a notebook from my 8-year-old self, a “spy journal,” part of my obsession with Harriet the Spy (the book and the movie, because I was pretty militant when it came to reading the book before seeing the movie in those days). In that notebook, alongside spy entries, are poems—rather angsty poems, but poems, nonetheless. In those days, I was pretty into Eloise Greenfield, too—I memorized her poem “Harriet Tubman” for a school project, and I distinctly remember wishing I could talk like the speakers of her poems—they were so sure of themselves, so Black. I wanted to live in that voice.

  I wrote poems here and there until 6th grade, when my Language teacher had us write a piece about the morning landscape outside our school. My piece, “Autumn Morning,” was, apparently, good enough for her to suggest that I apply to the Alabama School of Fine Arts (where my older sister already went for visual arts). My mom agreed—she had that poem framed and hanging in our house for way too long—and I applied, and from there, I spent six years studying creative writing, and the rest is sort of history, I guess.

  I decided poetry was my bread and butter toward the end of high school—we had to write a senior thesis project, and I modeled mine after Rita Dove’s Thomas and Beulah—I had a copy of Dove’s selected/collected works that I read and re-read and re-re-read for like two years straight—and I realized that that was how I wanted to tell stories in the world. I wanted to use poetry to say something, and although I wouldn’t really find my grown-up poetic voice until grad school, I was certain that poetry was my medium.

  ORIGINS

  W.E.B Du Bois’s “nation within a nation” came to mind while I was reading Magic City Gospel. You mythologize, complicate and give praise to the African-American community—its legends, its ghosts, its loves and language. You also explore how Birmingham has presently and historically treated black people, while weaving in your own experiences as a black woman growing up in Alabama. What are some of the challenges/advantages to writing about a city that is so close to you, that is culturally rich, but historically fraught?

  JONES

  Goodness, to be in conversation with Du Bois!

  I love Birmingham. I love Alabama. I haven’t always felt that way. In fact, as a child and adolescent, I was so sure I’d leave this place and never return. I hated our history, I hated the way racism still bubbled up in my life, in our government. I hated how people expected me to have an accent. I thought of my hometown as backwards. I saw it as a rotting place. But, when I left for grad school, I realized how wrong I had been. How I needed to leave my beautiful home to see its beauty. I needed to see Alabama for all that is, not only the horrors of it. Yes, we have a racist past and present. Yes, we have a long way to go in our business and industrial endeavors. Yes, we have a long way to go in terms of civil rights and acceptance. But, we are also a place of great warmth and beautiful culture. Our history is so very historically fraught—I live in a place where my existence as a Black woman is marked by the murders of four girls at 16th Street Baptist Church. My place as an academic is marked by George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door and by my dad’s (and many others’) experiences integrating our schools. My role as an educator is marked by the highly suspect (read: racist/classist) re-zoning of public schools in my area to exclude Black and Brown students. But that existence is also marked by a Southern culture that, although it was created by a slave trade that is so horrific and ugly and terrifying, is something that makes me who I am and something that I love. I love saying “ya’ll.” I love potato salad and pound cake. I love the hills and trees and lemonade sky of Alabama. I love red dirt and grits and Black church choirs and my southern mother and my southern father, and I love flying back home from a reading or a conference and seeing how green and spacious Alabama is.

  So, all of this, these conflicting feelings of anger, shame, pride, and love come to the surface of my writing. I had to make my way to this Southern voice—I didn’t write about myself or my home until I got to grad school, and I realized that this Southern Black identity was what I needed to express. It is my most honest truth, it is my specific and magical experience. I write about our past, which is not pretty, because I firmly believe two things—first, that love must be whole, complete, and it must consider every part of a thing. So for me, loving my hometown and my home state includes a knowledge and a desire to investigate and interrogate our history and all of our failures and setbacks. I can’t step into a classroom without knowing that my parents, grandparents, etc., wouldn’t have been able to learn, much less teach, in a room with mixed races and quality materials and peace of mind (no one is throwing spitballs at me or waiting to beat me for simply darkening their schoolhouse doorway). I can’t step into a voting booth or tell my students to vote if I don’t recognize the violent history of Black voter suppression in my state and many others. I can’t love this city without acknowledging all that it is. Second, I believe it’s impossible to move forward or to progress as a city/state/nation without recognizing the past. All of us carry the past (our own and larger histories) with us every day, in every moment. So, I write about my past and present, because that’s a whole representation of my whole self.

  It can be challenging to strike a balance, however, between past and present, and misrepresenting either of them. It can be easy for people to look at Birmingham and say “they did it, they faced racism and racism lost.” Or, “they had bad police and now they don’t. They did it!” Or, “the past was full of church bombings and bad times, only.” These things simply aren’t true. I want to convey, in my work, that there is nuance in everything. Yes, the past was full of bad things, but it was also full of good. Yes, our present doesn’t necessarily look like our past, but that certainly doesn’t mean “racism is over” or that we all exist happily and we’re all integrated and we’re not gentrifying…

  One last thing I’ll say re: Birmingham is that I love writing about it and the South because it’s my truth. I tell my students that it’s most important to find your specific voice, find your truth and write about that. I used to think I wasn’t Black enough or that my upbringing was too this and not enough that, but when I just wrote my story, I realized that lots of people identified with me, and that my existence was valid, and that the honesty I brought to the page was ringing true for many readers all across the country. Being specific to your own story creates work that can reach people on a universal level, and that’s what’s most important!

  ORIGINS

  While I was reading Magic City Gospel, I heard the voices of Lucille Clifton, Gwendolyn Brooks and Audre Lorde. Impressively, your voice is your own, it’s consummately Ashley M. Jones. Would you talk a bit about how you craft voice in individual poems and how you created a cohesive voice in the collection?

  JONES

  That’s a hard question to answer. Finding one’s voice is one of those things that’s almost impossible to explain and articulate. But, the simple answer is that I stay honest. I’ll explain that in a second, but let me also say that it is an extreme HONOR to be thought of in the same sentence as Lucille Clifton (my poetrymother), Gwendolyn Brooks, and Audre Lorde. Like, you don’t even understand. Those are real life idols. They have shown me my own possibility, and they continue to guide me throughout my journey.

  So, voice.

  Like I said, it’s all about being myself on the page. I want my poems to sound like me, to sound right coming out of my Ashleymouth. So, I approach each piece as a new way to express myself. And I mean that quite literally—each poem is a new way for me to put me on page, as honestly as possible. Even if I’m writing about someone else, or if I’m telling a piece of history, I want to keep the work as close to my own thoughts and feelings as possible. What do I want to communicate to the world about this topic? That’s the question I’m answering in each piece, I think. And, since a lot of the poems in the book were responses to assignments in grad school, I’d approach each prompt by figuring out how Ashley related to that topic. If they asked me to write about love, the Ashley love vault is either going to come up with something about biscuits, my family, Gregory Hines, or the various anti-loves I’ve had. Every piece is a part of me, as corny as that sounds—whatever poem someone encounters should ring true to and of Ashley Michelle Jones.

  ORIGINS

  On that note, are there any writers or artists who were inspirational to you while you were crafting this book?

  JONES

  Well, of course I’m always striving to capture the brilliance and brevity of Lucille Clifton—I’m always inspired by her. I also read a lot of Kevin Young (Dear Darkness and its southern stories and jelly roll’s rhythm and sensuality were particularly inspiring), too. But, as I said, I was in grad school as I wrote this book, so my peers at Florida International University were also super inspiring. Seeing their work each work at the workshop table, hearing my professors talk about poetry, simply living among such artistic geniuses was fuel to my Magic City fire.

  I also listen to a lot of music in my daily life, and that was no different as I wrote this book. I listen to music as soon as I wake up (once I press play on my phone, it’s officially time to get ready for work/the day), and I’m always listening to it as I compose poetry. A few artists that were in heavy rotation during composition of the book were John Legend (the Get Lifted Album, because we all know the other ones are less-than-inspiring), Jill Scott, Marc Anthony, Stevie Wonder and like very Motown artist ever, Usher, Sammy Davis Jr., Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu, goodness, I can’t even think of everyone. But, music is hugely inspiring for me.

  And, now, Celia Cruz is a source of huge inspiration for me. She encourages me to keep writing my own story, confidently. If you haven’t listened to her, please do. And if you don’t speak Spanish (listening to her has improved mine greatly), please look up her lyrics and get them translated. Amazing.

  Finally, the artist who inspires me and keeps me writing the most, over all other humans on this earth, is my mom, Jennifer Jones. I read every poem I write to her, and she tells me if it’s good or not. And, if I’m ever stuck—I made many a call to her while I was in Miami, trying to write for an assignment—I just chat with her and she helps me arrive at an idea. I truly have the best mom in all the world, and she is a constant source of support and writerly advice (although she isn’t a writer, but she and my dad have artistic minds) that I really can’t live without.

  ORIGINS

  Throughout Magic City the speaker is interested in “unshackling” the old and breathing life into new aesthetic forms and forgotten histories. In “Spinster” you define and re-define the word “spinster,” in “nem” you discuss the power and drawbacks of colloquialisms, in the poem “The History Books Have Forgotten Horace King” you memorialize a mixed race slave named Horace King whose accomplishments were largely forgotten by black history’s canon. Why is it important to you to find new ways of giving tribute to traditional history or form?

  JONES

  I like finding new ways to write and new ways to see history because I don’t like monotony in any aspect of my life. I like changing my hair, my clothes, my mascara…it only stands to reason that the same would be true in my poetry. My mind is ever-moving and changing, so the way I approach my art is also ever-evolving. And, certain topics or poems beg to be told in different ways, so I have to listen to the material. So, with “nem,” for example, that poem needed to be a dictionary definition form because I was exploring language, its meanings, and I also sought to define what it means to own words, and what those words mean to different people. And, as far as forgotten histories—I think it’s important for us to give voice to those whose voices have been ignored or silenced—as a Black woman, I know what it means for a voice to be diminished by history, the academy, the canon, by men, by the government, etc., and I want to use my art as a microphone of sorts, to let those of us who have been silenced speak, finally.

  ORIGINS

  What’s your favorite poem in the collection and why? What was the poem that you struggled with the most?

  JONES

  That’s a hard question—I love every poem in the book!

  My two favorites, or, the two that are jumping to mind right now are “What It Means to Say Sally Hemings” and “How To Make Your Daughters Culturally Aware and Racially Content at Christmastime.” I love the Hemings piece because it is a totally different style for me—I don’t often write in the list format, and this is quite a change from this poem’s original form. It started as a traditional poem, but it was far too moralizing and average, so I stripped it down to just facts in a list, and that gave the piece the power I thought Sally Hemings deserved—a power she didn’t wield in her life. I love reading this poem at readings, too—it makes me feel strong and defiant, like I’m kicking Thomas Jefferson and the white male patriarchy in the you-know-what.

  “Christmastime” is a favorite simply because it’s about my family, and anyone who knows me knows how much I love my family. My parents raised us to be proud of our blackness, and to see blackness in everything, even Santa Claus. That poem brings back memories that make me smile, and it, hopefully, shows people that there is a such thing as a black-centric Christmas/childhood/existence.

  The poem that was the hardest for me was probably “Birmingham Fire and Rescue Haiku, 1963.” This piece is, as the title suggests, written in haiku form, and although haiku is often hailed as the easiest formal poem, these haiku were more difficult to write than any sestina I’ve ever written. That’s only because I was trapped by the syllable count (which I did on purpose—I wanted to render this 1963 scene in a way that was fresh and distilled to its most important parts to avoid sentimentality and cliché), and I was eager to make a statement without making the same old statements that have already been made about this iconic moment. I have to thank Danez Smith for his editorial eye on this piece—I took it with me to a one-on-one workshop the Ruth Lilly Fellows (of 2015, I think) offered at the Miami Book Fair International, and his suggestions really helped me make the poem better, and that version is what you see in the book. I’m super proud of this piece—it’s everything I wanted it to be.

  ORIGINS

  Carol Hanisch and Audre Lorde discuss this idea that, “the personal is political.” Do you see writing about your life or topics you care about as a “political” act? Do you see yourself as an activist or voice for marginalized communities?

  JONES

  Yes, I’m an activist, on page and in life. First of all, everything I do is political because I exist in a Black body in America. Every piece I write will be seen through that lens, whether I like it or not. I take that responsibility very seriously. No, I don’t think every poem has to fight a huge cause or anything like that, but I do realize the space I occupy in the literary world, in the classroom, and in my community.

  I choose to write about political subjects because, as an artist, I feel it’s my job to show what the world is like during my lifetime—that’s what we look for in poets and artists of the past, isn’t it? We study their work in the context of the times in which they lived, and if I’m fortunate enough to be studied years from now, I want my work to reflect the times in which I live. So, I write about real things that are really happening, and those things are often political.

  And, goodness, I don’t know if I would say I serve as a voice for marginalized communities. And that’s not because I’m not a marginalized voice—I am. But I hesitate to say I’m “a voice” in the same way that someone much more important than I am might be. I’m still growing and developing, so I’m one voice of many. With that said, I do think my voice is important to people—my students are listening to it, my peers are listening, and my mentors are, too. I’m proud of that, and I’ll keep speaking with heart, honesty, and with a great deal of responsibility.

  ORIGINS

  I love that. Are you working on any new projects?

  JONES

  Yes! I’m writing new poetry right now, and I hope these poems become my second book. One of those poems is published here—it’s about a bell at Morehouse College that is said to have been used not only for official school functions, but also to warn students and faculty of Klan threats. I learned about this bell at the reading series I co-coordinate—the Nitty Gritty Magic City Reading Series in Birmingham, AL. We hosted novelist Gray Stewart earlier this month, and he read from his novel Haylow, which mentions a fictional bell with the same purpose. After doing a little research, I wrote this poem. Many thanks to Origins for sharing it with the world!

  And, folks can always find out what I’m doing at my website, ashleymichellejones.wordpress.com, or by following my public Facebook page.
  Posted on April 19, 2017 .

• linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashley-m-jones-4269339a

  Ashley M. Jones

  Creative Writing Faculty, Alabama School of Fine Arts and Workshop Coordinator at Ada Long Creative Writing Workshop

  Birmingham, Alabama
  Writing and Editing

  Current

  Alabama School of Fine Arts

  Previous

  Ada Long Creative Writing Workshop/ UAB, Florida International University, Gulf Stream Literary Magazine

  Education

  Florida International University

  325
  connections
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  Summary

  I'm a poet and teacher from Birmingham, Alabama, and I have a passion for education and putting the arts into the community. I have extensive experience working with all age groups in an educational, management, and volunteer setting. I am currently a Master of Fine Arts Candidate at Florida International University. I aspire to work as an instructor and a university administrator.
  Experience

  Creative Writing Instructor
  Alabama School of Fine Arts
  Present
  Workshop Coordinator
  Ada Long Creative Writing Workshop/ UAB
  May 2014 – June 2015 (1 year 2 months)
  Florida International University
  Graduate Teaching Assistant
  Florida International University
  August 2013 – May 2015 (1 year 10 months)
  Features Editor
  Gulf Stream Literary Magazine
  2013 – 2014 (1 year)
  Student Office Assistant
  UAB Office of Stewardship
  2011 – 2012 (1 year)
  Editor In Chief
  Aura Literary Arts Review, UAB
  2009 – 2010 (1 year)
  America Reads Tutor
  Glen Iris Elementary School
  2008 – 2010 (2 years)

  Volunteer Experience & Causes

  Writer
  Miami Poetry Collective
  2012

  As a member of the MPC, I participate in performance art (writing poems on the spot, helping out with other creative writing initiatives in the Miami area) throughout the year, providing an artistic service to the South Florida community.

  Causes Ashley M. cares about:

  Arts and Culture
  Children
  Education
  Social Services

  Honors & Awards

  Second Runner Up, Poetry
  Poets & Writers Maureen Egen Writers' Exchange
  2014

  First Place, Graduate Poetry Division
  FIU Literary Awards
  2014

  Knight Foundation Fellowship
  Florida International University, James L. Knight Foundation

  Organizations

  City of Sunrise
  Official Poet of Little Free Libraries Initiative
  Starting 2013

  As official poet, I teach quarterly poetry workshops for the Sunrise, FL community.

  Publications

  Selected Poetry
  Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy
  2014

  Authors:
  Ashley M. Jones

  Selected Poetry
  Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy
  2013

  Authors:
  Ashley M. Jones

  Selected Poetry
  Aura Literary Arts Review
  2012

  Authors:
  Ashley M. Jones

  Languages

  Spanish

  Skills

  Creative WritingEnglish LiteratureEnglish Compositionarts outreachTeachingTeaching WritingLiteratureAcademic WritingPoetryEditingPublic SpeakingResearchMicrosoft OfficeSocial MediaHigher EducationSee 6+

  How's this translation?

  Great•Has errors

  Education

  Florida International University
  Florida International University
  Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.), Poetry/Creative Writing
  2012 – 2015

  Activities and Societies: Gulf Stream Literary Magazine
  University of Alabama at Birmingham
  University of Alabama at Birmingham
  Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), English/Creative Writing, Spanish
  2008 – 2012

  Activities and Societies: University Honors Program, UAB TrailBlazers, UAB Multicultural Scholars Program
  Alabama School of Fine Arts
  High School Diploma, Creative Writing Major
  2002 – 2008

• girls club collection - http://girlsclubcollection.org/writer-to-writer-ashley-m-jones/

  Writer to Writer is a guest blog project from Girls’ Club writer in residence Jan Becker that focuses on local writers and their perceptions of how femininity and self-proliferation figure into their work.

  Ashley M. Jones received an MFA from Florida International University. Her work has been published by the Academy of American Poets, pluck!, PMSPoemMemoirStory, Prelude, Kinfolks Quarterly, and other journals. She received a 2015 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award and a 2015 B-Metro Magazine Fusion Award. She is an editor of [PANK] Magazine, and she teaches creative writing at the Alabama School of Fine Arts. Her forthcoming debut collection of poetry is Magic City Gospel (Hub City Press; 2017) an exploration of race, identity, and history through the eyes of a young, black woman from Alabama.

  For this interview, Girls’ Club Writer in Residence, Jan Becker, talked with Jones about the Magic Cities of Birmingham, Alabama and Miami, Florida, the good spell of poetry, the importance of history, how word magic impacts young people and the world at large, and how she’s coping with a year packed with new opportunities and accolades.

  JB: Ashley, thank you for talking to me for the Girls’ Club blog about your work, and your forthcoming debut collection of poems Magic City Gospel (Hub City Press; 2017). I’ve read an advanced reading copy of the book, and I’m very excited to talk about it with you, because I think it’s an important book. I want to start this interview by deconstructing the title of your book, and talking about how place figures into your writing. First, the Magic City of the title is Birmingham, Alabama, where you grew up and live now. But I’ve also heard people call Miami the “Magic City.” You spent some time here in South Florida, especially in the MFA program at Florida International University in Miami while you were writing these poems. Can you talk a little about what makes each of these places a “Magic City?” Did Miami’s magic make it into your book as well?

  AJ: Yes! Miami’s magic most definitely made it into this book—in fact, I wouldn’t have appreciated my own Magic City (Birmingham) if I hadn’t moved to Miami. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

  Place is so huge in this book—Birmingham as place, memory as place, blackness as place. This would be a completely different book if it were written by a non-Birminghamian, by a non-Ashley M. Jones, by a non-black person. These histories I deal with are directly related to the where and when. I wouldn’t react to a KKK uniform in a museum the same way if I weren’t a black girl from Alabama. I certainly wouldn’t react to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in the same way—I mean, the fact that I literally could have been one of those girls is a sobering reality, and it makes me, as a poet, interact with that historical material in such a personal way. As far as what makes Birmingham magical, that’s a hard question to answer. Perhaps it’s our history that makes us magical—we popped up on the scene with iron ore, we stayed on the map because we championed racism in our laws and our deeds, and we remain in a sort of spotlight because some people say we’re an example of how far a place can come. Yes, we’ve progressed—although I wasn’t alive during the days of Jim Crow, I do feel like things have changed, positively, although I hesitate to quantify it. We are certainly not “post-racism” in Birmingham, and don’t let anyone tell you that we’re a shining example of how to completely recover from social injustices, because we’re still dealing with these issues today, but I will say that our magic does lie in these contradictions and struggles and joys, and the incredible future we can enjoy if we don’t throw our past transgressions into a “that was then” pile.

  As for Miami—that city’s magic isn’t what people think it is. There are lights and sparkling celebrities, expensive cars and loud music, and the whole place is this sort of colorful explosion that sets your pulse beating fast. But! I found magic in Miami in poetry, in young artists, and in the way the community seems to always be down for something weird and artsy. It takes a certain amount of vulnerability, whimsy, and trust for a city to open itself up for a whole month of poetic activity (O, Miami Poetry Festival – or, Poetry Christmas if you ask me), and that is magical to me. It wasn’t until I left the South (because we all know Miami isn’t in the South. It is clearly doing its own thing. Y’all don’t even eat grits!) that I realized how much magic can exist in one place. Seeing the vibrant culture of Miami, and the way little things can really be so poetic and tragic at the same time—I mean, a city that will, eventually, be underwater is constantly constructing, reinventing, celebrating a poetic exercise in carpe diem, I think—really made me yearn to reconnect with my hometown and find those tragically magical things that I interacted with on a daily basis in Miami. And, you can’t really appreciate a place until you’re away from it, and that’s exactly what happened when I left Birmingham, and somehow found myself in the other Magic City. Even that shared nickname seemed to tell me I needed to hasten back to my own magic instead of borrowing Miami’s. I’m forever grateful for those three years in Miami, though, because they awakened an idea that every little thing, every little place, even the way the air is so hot it looks like water, can be absolutely magical, and can take me to the page and beyond.

  So, short answer: yes, Miami is also a huge part of this book. Being there, away from my home, actually made me closer to home and all its magic. I had to fill those 800 miles with poems, and that versebridge is this book, Magic City Gospel.

  JB: My next question again is more deconstruction of the title. This time, I want to focus more on the “Gospel,” because to me, “Gospel” is a word that’s loaded with meaning. There’s the music of course, the four books in the Bible—also sometimes referred to as the “Good News,” but then it goes deeper also, into ideas of irrefutable “truth,” and of spreading knowledge to a wide audience. Out of curiosity, I looked into the etymology of the word, and it’s very literal translation comes from Old English for “good spell.” I think it’s a fair assumption, based on your work with children, and from reading your poetry, that words are not something you believe exist in a vacuum—that they change things when they’re let loose on the world. So here’s the big question, what kind of magic, if you take the title very literally, are you hoping to let loose in the world? If this is a good spell, what do you want it to do?

  AJ: I am absolutely in love with the idea of gospel as a good spell. That’s exactly what it is, I think. And, you’re right, words absolutely do not exist in a vacuum. They have so much power, and they do change things when they’re let loose in the world or let loose in a student or a reader. And, if I’m going to let any words or spells loose in the world, I only want them to be good ones. That doesn’t mean they’ll be all cotton candy and kumbaya. In fact, I think some of the best “good spells” are those that make you uncomfortable, that make your brain all itchy with wonder and your heart all drippy with the most viscous emotion you can bear. But, joy is also a wonderful magic to spread. We need both—joy and pain, in the immortal words of Frankie Beverly. I want to spread the magic that is my own self-celebration. That I come from a place (Alabama, America) where they were hosing people down and bombing their homes and lynching their mothers because of the same skin I’m wearing today, and that I grew up learning about that history, and that I’m living in a world that’s, I guess, a little craftier in its delivery of discrimination (not always so crafty, sometimes it’s the same old thing), but I still want to celebrate it and the me that it produced is something quite magical and powerful. I refuse to forget what this place went through and what it’s going through, and I refuse to forget what I’ve been through, but I’m still in love with me and with Birmingham, flaws and all. I want to spread that history to those who don’t know it, and to those who know it too well but maybe haven’t heard it from this perspective. I want to show young writers that they can write about themselves, their little hometowns or big hometowns, little histories, big histories, or the way their dad painted Santa Claus brown, or the way their mom would only buy them black and brown dolls, or how they still think about the unibrowed boy who rejected them in fifth grade and it is still powerful and it is still poetry and it is important.

  JB: I want to focus on the history of Birmingham for a moment, because it has had such an important role, not only in the history of the United States, but also specifically in the history of The Civil Rights Movement, and many of these poems are strong considerations of how history impacted both you, and many generations of Black Americans. It’s obvious that as a country, we still have a lot of work to do in areas of personal liberty and equality. Can you talk about what America at large can learn from Birmingham?

  AJ: This is the question I hate to answer, because although I’m very proud of what Birmingham has left behind—Bull Connor, “segregation now, segregation forever,” a police force full of KKK, etc… I’m super hesitant to say that we’ve done it, or that we’ve solved every single problem, or that those problems can neatly fit into “the sixties” or The Civil Rights Movement, because they can’t. As a country, we have made some strides—and they’re not small ones. It’s sad that we have to do so much work to let humans live as humans on earth, but that’s a discussion for another day, perhaps. Like America, Alabama has made a lot of strides in the areas of personal liberty and equality, but there are still many issues we need to address. I will be slow to adopt a hashtag or call the civil rights struggle a past issue, but I will say that we are moving in a positive direction. The issue was always larger than just water fountains and lunch counters, but that I can exist in this city and walk freely and proudly, and that I am a Black professional, that I’m visible to students and to my peers, and that I’m being recognized for work that is completely concerned with blackness and womanness and the broken history/present of Birmingham and America means quite a lot. And, more importantly, the fact that I’m not alone in this visibility means a lot, too. The fact that I can go to AWP or read a list of contest winners or literally open any contemporary journal publishing quality work and see so many of us who are so often silenced is an encouraging thing. Again, not saying all problems are magically solved, but that is encouraging. I think America can learn about the horrors of human insecurity and the poison of power structures from Birmingham. That a whole city can be set up, from the ballot box to the governor’s mansion to the dude directing traffic to even a waiter making sandwiches from plain white bread and cold bologna, to oppress, exclude, deny, dehumanize, and control a race of people is horrific and almost unbelievable. We are seeing that sort of fear, insecurity, and inability to see past a need for power start to creep out over our country (or, if I’m being honest, it’s just being dragged out more. It was never dead, just hiding, although sometimes in plain sight.). Again, although I don’t want to say that Birmingham is some sort of picture of perfection and equality, we can look back and see that those methods do not win in the long run, and that they create so many problems and setbacks, and you just look terrible if you’re driving a tank through your city in the name of segregation. Or building a wall.

  I think Birmingham is really becoming a beautiful and modern city, and it’s becoming a place that is magical to everyone—not just people who were born here. Just a few weeks ago, I was eating at Post Office Pies in Avondale, which is a sort of gentrified area now, and when I found out that this place was owned by a black man who was actually from the area, my heart did backflips. That’s the way to pour your talents back into your hometown. That’s what Birmingham is experiencing right now. Those of us who grew up in a slightly less international/shiny Birmingham are coming back with our knowledge from all corners of the world, and we’re trying to build the city into something even more magical than it already was. That’s what our future can hold. And America is no different. We need to pour into the country and into each other, and discourage this toxic, horrific climate that’s edging in. We need to talk about race, privilege, economic disparity, the apathy of some of our lawmakers, and all the rest. We have to dig in—this generation will have incredible power, just as it has in Birmingham.

  JB: Over the last year or so, you’ve graduated from FIU, moved back to Birmingham, and began working at the Alabama School of Fine Arts. That’s a lot, but then you also took over as co-editor of [Pank] Magazine, signed a book deal with Hub City Press, and won a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award, which is a huge honor. Can you talk a little about what the past year has been like for you as an emerging writer?

  AJ: This past year has been unreal. And, it’s also been an exercise in humility. It is completely unheard of that I’d experience this much success in such a short time and so soon after graduating with my MFA. I am so incredibly humbled to know that my words are doing so much in the world already—my words! It has been wonderful and life-affirming to cross so many things off my poet’s to-do list, but I have also had to remember that I can’t let this sparkly year go to my head or make me feel pressured to always have this sort of Grand Slam year. I’m beyond honored to be valued by the literary community and to be entrusted with these incredible students at ASFA and to be considered literarily responsible enough to co-edit [PANK], but, I’m also having to give myself little pep talks here and there so I realize I don’t have to be a literary superhero all the time. Yes, I have students looking at me and looking up to me. Yes, I’m an editor, and I’m choosing work that I hope will impact people and mean something in the world. Yes, I was a Rona Jaffe Writer’s Award winner, and that’s something to be super proud of. But, I’m also allowed to be Ashley who likes to veg out and watch Bollywood and sometimes not write poetry. This many good things can sometimes be paralyzing—you don’t want to mess up or fall from this poetic mountaintop, but I’ve had to spend this year enjoying the successes, but also realizing that my work and my life will still matter even if I never win anything ever again.

  On a less philosophical note, this year has really made me feel how small the literary community really is. There are less degrees of separation between me and my literary heroes than I thought, and that’s very encouraging as a writer. I feel like, when I go to the page, realizing that this blank page is just as blank for me as it is for, maybe, Kevin Young or Tracy K. Smith is comforting, and it makes me a lot less judgmental of my work. I’m a poet just like they are poets. I have trained, I have seen things, I have literary creativity just like they do. I can get up in front of a class and wax poetic about verbs just like Campbell McGrath does. I can go to a conference and shake hands with the editor of RHINO. I can see my name and my poem on poets.org. I can do all of those things and I can still sit in anguish at the blank page just like they do, and in that (and so many other things) we are connected, and it makes some of that paralysis I referenced earlier a little less present.

  JB: Lastly, I want to ask you about your work with young people. When you were here in South Florida, you were actively involved in the Little Free Libraries Initiative in Sunrise, and served as its Official Poet. Now that you’re back in Birmingham, you teach at a school for fine arts—where you were also a student. Can you talk about the positive impact you’ve seen poetry having on young people and how the “gospel” of poetry spreads once young writers begin creating poems?

  AJ: Oh, students are my absolute favorite. There’s really nothing more exciting and scary and rewarding and frustrating and magical than working with students. In Miami, I worked with very young students (second graders) all the way up to high school students and first-year college students. I saw, even in the really young ones, the confidence poetry seemed to bring. The students found voice and something sparkly that made them puff up their chests when they shared work after a workshop. Some students wrote about their pain, and that was a cathartic experience as well, for the writer and the listener. Most importantly, I think these students realized what a beautiful story their lives held, and even if they never wrote another poem after I taught a Saturday workshop or came to their school for an afternoon, I could feel and see something click in them when I told them to write about themselves and their experiences. The world becomes a magical place when you realize that something as small as butter can be poetic (with thanks to Elizabeth Alexander, of course). In Birmingham, that same thing is happening, but there’s another element here because these students I’m working with at ASFA (Alabama School of Fine Arts) are doing an intensive, six-year-long course of study, so they are learning skills that will eventually propel them to an MFA, to a Pulitzer, to a career in writing. Seeing them realize that they have what it takes to make it that far, that they have a unique opportunity to dive into their career right now, in junior high and high school is magical for them and for me. When they discover what they can do with punctuation, or when I introduce them to a new writer or show them what political work can do in a book like Citizen [by Claudia Rankine], they let that knowledge bleed into their work, and then that bleeds into other students’ work, and that excitement makes them work harder to make their writing strong, and that strength is then recognized in journals and contests, and they’re seeing their literary dreams come true, and they’re even more empowered to keep writing and spreading that literary gospel. And, if all of that can happen because I write and I believe in my work and the power that writing can have in someone’s life, I am happy to keep writing and teaching and spreading whatever poetic gospel I can!

  How to Make Your Daughters Culturally Aware and Racially Content During Christmastime, by Ashley M. Jones from Magic City Gospel (Hub City Press; 2017)

  Previously appeared in PMSPoemMemoirStory

  Remind them

  Jesus Black.

  Despite the pictures Granny

  has hung on the wall,

  despite the glowing good old boy

  on her pile of church fans,

  Jesus was a brother.

  A bruh, not a bro.

  Hair of wool, you tell them.

  Buy a new nativity set.

  Mary with her press and curl,

  Joseph with a fade,

  baby Jesus fresh out the womb

  and curly.

  Go to a roadside Christmas shop.

  Buy a pale, smiling Santa.

  Let your daughters wonder

  how he turned brown overnight—

  how Santa’s face became just like their own,

  brown and buttery, a Yuletide miracle.

  When you’re trimming your plastic tree—

  the one you’ve had since the 80’s,

  put on “Rudolph” bopped by the Temptations,

  “Deck the Halls” by Smokey,

  Donny Hathaway’s “This Christmas,”

  and Gladys Knight’s deep, brown voice crooning “Jingle Bells.”

  Fill the treeskirt

  with tightly-wrapped gifts.

  31

  Anticipate

  your daughters’ unbreakable smiles

  when they rip off the paper

  to reveal an army

  of Black Barbies

  and brown baby dolls.

• UAB magazine - https://www.uab.edu/uabmagazine/features/heartache-and-humor

  Ashley M. Jones's poetry earns national acclaim
  By Charles Buchanan and Tiffany Westry
  Her first book isn’t finished, but Ashley M. Jones’s words already are earning national accolades. Recently, the young poet and 2012 UAB alumna won the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, a prestigious honor spotlighting promising female writers of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction early in their careers. She was among only six women nationally to receive the award.
  “Winning this award validates what I’ve been writing,” says Jones, a creative writing teacher at the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham. “Sometimes writing is a lonely process, and you never know if your work will be well received or if it will be meaningful to others. The award encourages me to continue.”
  Hear—and see—Jones read her poetry on her website.
  Birmingham’s history, the Civil Rights Movement, and Jones’s personal experiences inspire her poetry. An anonymous nominator submitted Jones’s work for the award, explaining that “her poems approach the complicated racial and national identity of the author with heartache and humor in a voice that also speaks to her generation.”
  Jones earned a bachelor's degree in English from UAB. She credits that education, which also included courses in Spanish and the UAB Honors College, with sharpening her writing. Professors in all academic areas “cultivated the interdisciplinary mindset” and “helped me discover my own poetic voice,” she says.
  With the award’s $30,000 prize, Jones will complete her first book of poetry, Magic City Gospel, and continue her poetry workshops for Birmingham elementary- and high-school students. “I want to be a model for young writers of color and show them that their writing can be political, and it can tell important stories without compromising literary merit,” she says. “I hope my writing is accessible to all readers and that it creates awareness and sparks a fresh way of thinking about our country’s past and present.”

• ASFA - http://www.asfa.k12.al.us/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=665340&type=u

  Ashley M. Jones

  Ashley M. Jones
  Creative Writing Faculty

  BIO
  Supply List
  Email
  Phone: (205) 252-9241
  MFA

  Ashley M. Jones received an MFA in Poetry from Florida International University (FIU), where she was a John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Fellow. She served as Official Poet for the City of Sunrise, Florida’s Little Free Libraries Initiative from 2013-2015, and her work was recognized in the 2014 Poets and Writers Maureen Egen Writer’s Exchange Contest and the 2015 Academy of American Poets Contest at FIU. She was also a finalist in the 2015 Hub City Press New Southern Voices Contest, the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award Contest, and the National Poetry Series. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in the Academy of American Poets, Tupelo Quarterly, Prelude, Steel Toe Review, Fjords Review, Quiet Lunch, Poets Respond to Race Anthology, Night Owl, The Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, pluck!, Valley Voices: New York School Edition, Fjords Review: Black American Edition, PMSPoemMemoirStory (where her work was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2016), Kinfolks Quarterly, Tough Times in America Anthology, and Lucid Moose Press’ Like a Girl: Perspectives on Femininity Anthology. She received a 2015 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award and a 2015 B-Metro Magazine Fusion Award. She was an editor of PANK Magazine. Her debut poetry collection, Magic City Gospel, was published by Hub City Press in January 2017, and it won the silver medal in poetry in the 2017 Independent Publishers Book Awards.

  Teaching Philosophy:
  I believe the teacher's role is to serve as the guide for the student, not as the end-all and be-all of knowledge. I try to create a very student-centered classroom environment, where all voices are valuable, and creative exploration is encouraged. I often tell my students that we are learning and creating together, as I truly believe that a collaborative and non-hierarchical learning environment results in better creative and critical work.

  Education:
  Honors Diploma, Creative Writing Major - Alabama School of Fine Arts, 2008
  Bachelor of Arts in English with a Creative Writing Concentration and Spanish Minor, University and Departmental Honors, Summa Cum Laude - University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2012
  Master of Fine Arts in Poetry - Florida International University, 2015

Magic City Gospel
263.52 (Dec. 19, 2016): p96.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
* Magic City Gospel

Ashley M. Jones. Hub City, $14.95 trade paper (72p) ISBN 978-1-938235-26-9

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Jones paints a sweeping picture of Southern culture in her terrific debut collection, exhibiting pride of place as well as unflinching honesty about the traumas of its historical legacy. Jones juggles the idea of the South as home with its contradictory reality, wherein the innocence of childhood is threatened by the cruelty of racism. In the poem "Nem," Jones discusses the duality of her Southern identity, feeling like an outsider yet protected within her black community. "Inside, you tilt with excitement," Jones writes, "You light up, a pinball machine of colloquialisms." She continues, "you're the only black girl in most of your classes. It is easy to blend in and stand out." Like the collection itself, the poem showcases both the sacred and tender parts of a personal identity shaped by the South. This is also apparent in the poem "Addie, Carole, Cynthia, Denise," in which Jones discusses the 1963 bombing of Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church and references "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah," which originates from a racist pre-^Civil War folk song (the Disney version of the song has been criticized for sweeping its racist origins under the rug and reinforcing racist stereotypes). Through rich imagery and fluid language, Jones paints a complete picture of the South without sugarcoating the truth. (Jan.)

Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Magic City Gospel." Publishers Weekly, 19 Dec. 2016, p. 96. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA475324268&it=r&asid=d30b491ce3c835090e7b89d8d0601e12. Accessed 24 Sept. 2017.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A475324268

"Magic City Gospel." Publishers Weekly, 19 Dec. 2016, p. 96. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA475324268&asid=d30b491ce3c835090e7b89d8d0601e12. Accessed 24 Sept. 2017.

• up the staircase
  http://www.upthestaircase.org/magic-city-gospel.html
  Word count: 856

  Magic City Gospel by Ashley M. Jones
  Picture
  Paperback: 77 pages
  Publisher: Hub City Press (2017)
  Purchase: @ Hub City Press

  Review by Len Lawson

  With Magic City Gospel, Ashley M. Jones welcomes readers to Alabama, a hotbed for racial tension, to introduce family and history. She achieves magic by conjuring smoke from the state’s Jim Crow past and mirrors which she herself stands in front of.

  It is the heat in this heart of Dixie that serves as Jones’ backdrop for discussions on controversial issues. In “De Soto, Discoverer”, Jones writes on the origins of Alabama in the voice of European settlers who proclaim, “Even the blistering sunset / knows our names-- / it whispers / as it curtsies, equatorially / Espana, manifesto / the world is yours.” In “God Speaks to Alabama”, she writes in the voice of God to call the state back to Himself, acknowledging the climate: “I have waited / in this heat for you / to pucker / and say my name-- / Hallelujah Alabama.”

  The heat is also a marvelous motif to merge Jones’ childhood and the history of racism in the state. In “Birmingham Fire and Rescue”, she remembers visiting her father’s fire station and playing with the water hose with her family. She describes the hose as “a shower of mist and light / to cool us / in the Alabama heat.” The flashback reminds her of more innocent days where a water hose was a play thing and not a weapon for segregation. In “Birmingham Fire and Rescue Haiku, 1963”, Jones shows that the water hose ironically adds more fuel to fires of racism in Alabama rather than extinguishing them. “What about us said / we were on fire? What said / extinguish quickly, // fill up the hose / and set the dogs loose?...”

  A water hose would also have been used to quench the flames of the infamous 16th Street Birmingham Church Bombing. In “Addie, Carol, Cynthia, Denise”, Jones recalls this event that set Alabama and racial tension in the U.S. on fire. “Remember how 16th Street shook, / symphony of fiery coughs / that turned our Birmingham to blood.”

  Jones not only writes about the country’s battle with racism from the past, but she also is conscious of its impact on the present. She writes a gorgeous elegy in “Sammy Davis Jr. Sings to Michael Brown” for the young man killed by policeman Darren Wilson in Ferguson, MO, in 2014. She recognizes how young black men are vilified in this nation through her poem “The Men Come for Emmit and Tamir and Michael and Eric and John and Trayvon and…” She asks, “What is a black boy but a villain? / His black eyes. The way he goes about his black business. His towering / black height. His slang-cluttered speech.”

  Furthermore, woven in these accounts is the coming of age for a black girl in Alabama. In “Nem” (a common Southern colloquialism), Jones reveals in a pseudo-post-racial era how the shadow of racism looms heavy in the minds of children. “You’re quick with jokes / about race—you’re the only black girl in most of your classes. It is / easy to blend in and stand out.” In “The First Time I Heard about Slavery”, the young girl is mortified at the possibility that the racism and slavery depicted in Roots might actually come back alive in modern times. “So I didn’t sleep. I kept my eyes wide and guarded the life I had come to know.”

  This collection is uniquely Alabama and uniquely Southern. Ashley M. Jones is not just a Southern writer. She is a writer for the present time who has carefully observed Alabama history and canonized it in the fabric of American history, blending her own childhood experiences into the complex American tapestry. She masters the first poetry collection by remaining transparent for readers despite growing up in a setting that has marginalized the existence of her demographic. Magic City Gospel truly is the good news of Jones’ ability to perform optical illusions with her poetry.

  Picture
  Ashley M. Jones received an MFA in Poetry from Florida International University (FIU), where she was a John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Fellow. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in the Academy of American Poets, Tupelo Quarterly, Prelude, Steel Toe Review, Fjords Review, Quiet Lunch, Poets Respond to Race Anthology, Night Owl, The Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, pluck!, Valley Voices: New York School Edition, Fjords Review: Black American Edition, PMSPoemMemoirStory (where her work was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2016), Kinfolks Quarterly, Tough Times in America Anthology, and Lucid Moose Press’ Like a Girl: Perspectives on Femininity Anthology. She received a 2015 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award and a 2015 B-Metro Magazine Fusion Award. Her debut poetry collection, Magic City Gospel, is forthcoming from Hub City Press in January 2017. She serves as an editor of PANK Magazine, and she currently lives in Birmingham, Alabama, where she is a faculty member in the Creative Writing Department of the Alabama School of Fine Arts.

• verbicide
  https://www.verbicidemagazine.com/2017/02/24/magic-city-gospel-ashley-m-jones-poems-poetry-book-review/
  Word count: 898

  MAGIC CITY GOSPEL by Ashley M. Jones
  reviewed by Gabino Iglesias | Friday, February 24th, 2017
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  Magic City Gospel by Ashley JonesHub City Press, 72 pages, paperback, $14.95

  The first few poems of a book are like the opening paragraph of a novel: they have to hook the reader and set the tone for what’s to come. Ashley Jones’ first three poems in Magic City Gospel, manage to encompass chunks of the author’s, give a glimpse of the sacred territory the book will traverse, and let readers know that the writing they are about to experience belongs to the real of Things that Matter. In fact, the titles of these three poems can be taken by themselves and their strength is enough to make a statement: Sam Cooke Sings to Me when I Am Afraid, (I’m Blue) Te Gong Gong Song, or, America the Beautiful, and Eating Red Dirt in Greensboro, Alabama.
  Related:

  MINIVAN POEMS by Justin Grimbol

  “Earthy” is an adjective reviewers like to throw around, but which applies very well in this case. The poems found in Magic City Gospel are plucked from the earth, from the soil of Alabama, from the bloodstained ground in which history took place. Jones, using a wide array of voices and styles, tells her story and share her views of this nation, past and present, through the lens of a young African American woman, but in doing so, the history of her family, the history of all African Americans, and the history of this country end up being exposed. The result is an unapologetic and powerful collection of writings that serve, as the title indicates, as modern gospel, a song meant to be shared by those who know and share because they know and share it and by those who don’t understand because all the explanations ever needed are hanging from its rhythms like ripe fruit.

  All of the above would make it seems like this is a book full of pain and historical memory, but that’s not the case. Sure, there is that, but there is also love and fun and memories and familial drama and celebrations of life and prayers and notes of appreciation sent to those who’ve moved on. Jones knows that what she is doing with her writing is important, but she’s not afraid to simultaneously deal with her biography, pain, and humor.

  In the Beginning, There was Sound is a perfect example of this:

  “After I was born,
  I cried for three months straight.
  My mouth, a great brown crack
  in the Alabama soil,
  sprouted wondrous wails.
  My tongue,
  a cotton candy spade,
  licked the air,
  and it tasted of ticking
  and the salt
  of baby formula.
  Each day,
  I was a siren.
  Five o’ clock, exactly,
  and I’d scream until nightfall.
  Alive, I said.
  Pain, I said.
  Maybe I stopped
  because it is hard
  to keep roaring.
  Maybe because
  I felt the warm burn
  of my mother’s
  loving ear.
  Maybe,
  because I grew hoarse,
  and at some point,
  there’s nothing
  more to do
  with a voice
  than to hum drum
  and whisper
  as loud
  as you can.”

  Museums, text books and what they fail to teach, collective experiences, religion, historical figures, racism, Alabama, food, and family are the cohesive elements that make Magic City Gospel a collection of poems that doubles as a biography. This the narrative of a life offered to the reader in vignettes. However, that narrative doesn’t come from the void, and Jones isn’t afraid to reach back and talk about things like learning about slavery and encountering a KKK uniform in a museum as a young girl. These things would usually be very important, but the current sociopolitical landscape and the way it has facilitated the shameless flaunting of the racism that has always been part of this nation make Magic City Gospel a crucial text, a necessary collection that stands as a voice against all of it and establishes Jones as a strong, essential voice in contemporary poetry.

  Perhaps the most impressive thing about this collection is that it manages to stick to the reader with serious themes and its unique rhythm, but also because the writer has a unique perspective and engaging sense of humor. If I had to pick one poem out of the book to offer those on the fence about reading it, it’d be the funny, truthful, self-aware, and defiant Ingredient List: Black Girl:

  “big ass, big ass hair, natural and artificial flavors (oil sheen, blue
  magic hair grease, cocoa butter, shea butter, just plain butter, styling
  gel, bacon grease), all forms of supple (lips like pillows, finger-sinkable
  thighs, even the toes are voluptuous), murderous hips, intelligence
  (book learning, street learning, lyrics and poetry), a little
  extra joint in the neck (suitable for rolling).

  Not from concentrate. Do not refrigerate.”

  There’s nothing I can add to that, so go read this already

• fjord's review
  http://www.fjordsreview.com/reviews/magic-city-gospel-book.html
  Word count: 1412

  Magic City Gospel by Ashley M. Jones
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  Fjords Review, Magic City Gospel by Ashley M. Jones

  February 24, 2017
  Poetry
  Magic City Gospel
  by Ashley M. Jones

  Hub City Press, 2017
  57 pages
  ISBN 978-1-938235-26-9

  by José Angel Araguz
  X
  About José Angel Araguz

  JOSÉ ANGEL ARAGUZ is a CantoMundo fellow and the author of six chapbooks as well as the collection Everything We Think We Hear (Floricanto Press). His poems, prose, and reviews have appeared in RHINO Poetry, New South, and The Volta Blog. A current PhD candidate at the University of Cincinnati, he runs the poetry blog The Friday Influence. A second collection, Small Fires, is forthcoming from FutureCycle Press. https://thefridayinfluence.wordpress.com/.

  In a foreword to a selection of her work, Adrienne Rich offers the following reflection on her early writing life: “The learning of poetic craft was much easier than knowing what to do with it—with the powers, temptations, privileges, potential deceptions, and two-edged weapons of language” (emphasis mine). These words come to mind reading Ashley M. Jones’s Magic City Gospel, a debut collection whose poems repeatedly answer the call of “what to do with it” by placing poetic craft in the service of empathy.

  In “Viewing a KKK Uniform at the Civil Rights Institute,” for example, Jones meditates on a physical manifestation of history. The poem begins:

  All you can really tell at first
  is that it was starched.
  Some Betty Sue, Marge, Jane,
  some proper girl
  with a great black iron
  made those corners sharp.

  The tone here is intimate: the use of the second person places evokes the feeling of the speaker addressing the reader as if they stood side by side. This atmosphere of closeness is mirrored in the poem’s attempt to try to see into the humanity behind a uniform tied to so much inhumanity. In gauging what the eyes “can really tell at first,” the speaker begins the difficult task of facing not just history but what history represents, the people and acts behind dates and names. The speaker’s act of literal viewing takes a turn by the end:

  In front of it, you are dwarfed—
  you imagine a pair of pupils
  behind the empty holes
  of the mask.
  Behind the stiff cotton,
  would the eyes squint
  to see through small white slits,
  or would they open wide
  as a burning house
  to hunt you down
  until you pooled
  like old rope
  before them?

  This move from viewing to being viewed, which at the core is empathetic, is a troubled one; it as if the more history is viewed straight-on, the more one can feel something look back. Poetic craft here is used to push against this “viewing,” and the result is a speaker pushed back upon themselves, falling into a question rendered in clipped, urgent lines. That this poem ends on a question feels inevitable; history offers no answers, only presence, which in this case takes the shape of the speaker and the uniform being viewed. The image of a “pooled / old rope” mirrors the tension released by the end of the poem, and affirms, in both tone and voice, how this poem’s reckoning with history occurs on a personal level. Yet, while the imagery of these last lines releases the reader, its questioning lingers for both speaker and reader.

  This ambition to have poetic craft serve as a medium for personal connection while respecting the complexity of a given moment is at the heart of the collection. In “Salat Behind Al’s Mediterranean and American Food,” this ambition plays out in a scene of cultural confluence:

  This evening, in Birmingham,
  when I’m meeting a friend
  for fried chicken
  and poetry,
  you prostrate before God
  on a piece of cardboard box
  in the back alley.
  Beside you, there is a dumpster
  whispering styrofoam
  and onion skins.
  The shells of dead cockroaches
  bend and crackle
  under your knees. Even they pray.

  The speaker here is acting as lyric witness, describing a scene in order to understand it. Within the elasticity of the short lyric, Birmingham is presented in all its details: friendship, poetry, God, prayers in a back alley. Where the details commune, however, is in sounds: the varying s-sounds, from hard to soft, in “whispering styrofoam,” “skins,” and “shells,” mix with the hard c-sounds of “cockroaches” and “crackle,” only to give over to the open-ended vowel of “pray.” In this way, a poem about prayer becomes a pseudo-prayer itself, one honoring a moment of understanding and people seeing one another, and of a city existing as a living entity.

  In “Teaching J to Read,” a similar gesture of empathy occurs over a reading lesson, only instead of meeting, the poem focuses on missed connections:

  I don’t know how to begin,
  how to explain that A means A,
  that B isn’t Beaver
  but simply B,
  the second drawing
  in a series of twenty-six.

  [ ]

  I am useless, like an after-school special—
  here, there is no purple dinosaur,
  no sparkle in our smiles,
  no bell-toned music to montage this away.

  The humility of admitting not knowing “how to begin” in teaching literacy is amplified in a poem, an art made up of language and meaning. The impulse for metaphor inherent in poetry is present a few lines down in the speaker’s description of the letter B as being “simply B, / the second drawing / in a series of twenty-six.” The word “drawing” brings us back to art, which then brings us back to the speaker’s struggle to connect. When the speaker describes themselves as “useless, like an after-school special,” they are placing themselves in the list of ultimately unhelpful attempts to connect their student with language. The struggle of not connecting, of having language fall flat, has implications beyond the lesson. The poem ends by describing how:

  He loses his name
  in the sprawling alphabet—
  the surest letter is the first: J.
  This is the dark curve
  that marks him,
  and, even now,
  I can’t remember the letters
  that follow.

  The loss of self here on the part of the student mirrors the experience of the speaker; in reaching out to this student, the speaker risks over-reaching and losing their sense of self as a teacher. Yet, this risk and surrender are the marks of a committed teacher as much as a committed student. When the speaker admits to not being able to “remember the letters / that follow” the J of the title, it is bittersweet; the loss of the student’s name in the speaker’s memory echoes the student’s struggle to write it in the first place. This loss also implies what is at stake: what matters in this lesson are the personal (mis)connections engaged in the learning of the language itself. Assessing the price paid, in the form of a poem, puts poetic craft in the service of empathizing with the self.

  As has been noted, this collection is strongest when it brings together its elements and honors their complexity. From the weaving of a Sam Cooke song into a childhood memory (“Sam Cooke Sings to Me When I am Afraid”) to the reimagining of American history via the relationship between Ike and Tina Turner (“(I’m Blue) The Gong Song, or, America the Beautiful”), these poems have a great capacity for doing the work of connecting the personal and political. In this latter poem, Jones gives us a prose poem in the voice of Ike Tuner, who asks:

  “The conquering is never really done, is it? Natives, America, Anna Mae—all that voyaging fruit needs taming. What good is an explorer if he doesn’t keep his discoveries down?”

  Magic City Gospel stands as a testament of the good a poet-as-explorer can do when they share their discoveries and let them rise and be.

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