Podcast appearances and mentions of Ashley M Jones

Recorded by Ashley M. Jones for Poem-a-Day, a series produced by the Academy of American Poets. Published on January 22, 2025. www.poets.org

Recorded by Ashley M. Jones for Poem-a-Day, a series produced by the Academy of American Poets. Published on April 27, 2024. www.poets.org

Rebecca Gayle Howell and Ashley M. Jones on working-class poems, good food, and their fathers' bodies.

Alabama Poet Laureate and Celebrated Author Ashley M. Jones Joins the Chats to Talk Literacy and Writing Journey.About AshleyAshley M. Jones is Poet Laureate of the state of Alabama (2022-2026). She holds an MFA in Poetry from Florida International University, and she is the author of Magic City Gospel (Hub City Press 2017),  dark / / thing (Pleiades Press 2019), and REPARATIONS NOW! (Hub City Press 2021). 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. She was a finalist for the Ruth Lily Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship in 2020, and her collection, REPARATIONS NOW! was on the longlist for the 2022 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry. 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 Creative Writing at the Alabama School of Fine Arts and in the Low Residency MFA at Converse University. Jones co-directs PEN Birmingham, and she is the founding director of the Magic City Poetry Festival. She recently served as a guest editor for Poetry Magazine, and she is a 2022 Academy of American Poets Poet Laureate Fellow. Humanity Chats - a conversation about everyday issues that impact humans. Join us. Together, we can go far. Thank you for listening. Share with a friend. We are humans. From all around the world. One kind only. And that is humankind. Your friend, Marjy Marj

What Things Cost: An Anthology for the People (UP of Kentucky, 2023) is the first major anthology of labor writing in nearly a century. Here, editors Rebecca Gayle Howell & Ashley M. Jones bring together more than one hundred contemporary writers singing out from the corners of the 99 Percent, each telling their own truth of today's economy. In his final days, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called for a "multiracial coalition of the working poor." King hoped this coalition would become the next civil rights movement but he was assassinated before he could see it emerge as the Poor People's Campaign, now led by Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis. King's last lesson--about the dangers of dividing working people--inspired the conversation gathered here by Jones and Howell.  Fifty-five years after the assassination of King, What Things Cost collects stories that are honest, provocative, and galvanizing, sharing the hidden costs of labor and laboring in the United States of America. Voices such as Sonia Sanchez, Faisal Mohyuddin, Natalie Diaz, Ocean Vuong, Silas House, Sonia Guiñansaca, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Victoria Chang, Crystal Wilkinson, Gerald Stern, and Jericho Brown weave together the living stories of the campaign's broad swath of supporters, creating a literary tapestry that depicts the struggle and solidarity behind the work of building a more just America. All proceeds from the book will be donated to the Poor People's Campaign. Stephen Pimpare is director of the Public Service & Nonprofit Leadership program and Faculty Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

What Things Cost: An Anthology for the People (UP of Kentucky, 2023) is the first major anthology of labor writing in nearly a century. Here, editors Rebecca Gayle Howell & Ashley M. Jones bring together more than one hundred contemporary writers singing out from the corners of the 99 Percent, each telling their own truth of today's economy. In his final days, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called for a "multiracial coalition of the working poor." King hoped this coalition would become the next civil rights movement but he was assassinated before he could see it emerge as the Poor People's Campaign, now led by Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis. King's last lesson--about the dangers of dividing working people--inspired the conversation gathered here by Jones and Howell.  Fifty-five years after the assassination of King, What Things Cost collects stories that are honest, provocative, and galvanizing, sharing the hidden costs of labor and laboring in the United States of America. Voices such as Sonia Sanchez, Faisal Mohyuddin, Natalie Diaz, Ocean Vuong, Silas House, Sonia Guiñansaca, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Victoria Chang, Crystal Wilkinson, Gerald Stern, and Jericho Brown weave together the living stories of the campaign's broad swath of supporters, creating a literary tapestry that depicts the struggle and solidarity behind the work of building a more just America. All proceeds from the book will be donated to the Poor People's Campaign. Stephen Pimpare is director of the Public Service & Nonprofit Leadership program and Faculty Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

What Things Cost: An Anthology for the People (UP of Kentucky, 2023) is the first major anthology of labor writing in nearly a century. Here, editors Rebecca Gayle Howell & Ashley M. Jones bring together more than one hundred contemporary writers singing out from the corners of the 99 Percent, each telling their own truth of today's economy. In his final days, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called for a "multiracial coalition of the working poor." King hoped this coalition would become the next civil rights movement but he was assassinated before he could see it emerge as the Poor People's Campaign, now led by Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis. King's last lesson--about the dangers of dividing working people--inspired the conversation gathered here by Jones and Howell.  Fifty-five years after the assassination of King, What Things Cost collects stories that are honest, provocative, and galvanizing, sharing the hidden costs of labor and laboring in the United States of America. Voices such as Sonia Sanchez, Faisal Mohyuddin, Natalie Diaz, Ocean Vuong, Silas House, Sonia Guiñansaca, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Victoria Chang, Crystal Wilkinson, Gerald Stern, and Jericho Brown weave together the living stories of the campaign's broad swath of supporters, creating a literary tapestry that depicts the struggle and solidarity behind the work of building a more just America. All proceeds from the book will be donated to the Poor People's Campaign. Stephen Pimpare is director of the Public Service & Nonprofit Leadership program and Faculty Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

In the second episode of Read Appalachia, host Kendra Winchester poses the question, where does Appalachian Literature come from? The learn the answer, Kendra talks to Derek Krissoff, the Director of West Virginia University Press, and Meg Reid, the Directer of Hub City Press.View the complete show notes over on our website!Things MentionedWest Virginia University PressTwitter | InstagramHub City PressTwitter | InstagramBelt PublishingUniversity of Kentucky PressBlairBooks MentionedGuest InfoDerek Krissoff is director at West Virginia University Press and has previously worked at the university presses at Georgia and Nebraska.TwitterMeg Reid is the Director of Hub City Press in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where she finds and champions new and overlooked voices from the American South, including Carter Sickels, Drew Lanham, Ashley M. Jones, and Anjali Enjeti. An editor and book designer, her essays have appeared online in outlets like DIAGRAM, Oxford American, and The Rumpus. She holds an MFA in Nonfiction from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where she served as Assistant Editor of the literary magazine, Ecotone, and worked for the literary imprint Lookout Books.TwitterShow Your Love for Read Appalachia! You can support Read Appalachia by heading over to our merch store, tipping us over on Ko-fi, or by sharing the podcast with a friend! For more ways to support the show, head over to our Support page. Follow Read Appalachia Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | TikTok ContactFor feedback or to just say “hi,” you can reach us at readappalachia[at]gmail.comMusic by Olexy from Pixabay

The queens show why it matters how you wrap it up.Support Breaking Form! Buy Aaron's new book, Stop Lying. And pre-order James's new book, Romantic Comedy, available from Four Way Books in March 2023. Read Robert Hayden's iconic “Those Winter Sundays” here.Read Sharon Olds's “I Go Back to May 1937” hereYou can read Louise Glück's poem “Vita Nova” here. TERF Adrienne Rich's poem “Diving into the Wreck” can be read here. Read Lucille Clifton's “why some people be mad at me sometimes” here. Martha Zweig's poem “Burying the Cat” from Vinegar Bone can be read here. Threa Almontaser's website is https://www.threawrites.com. Read her poem “Hidden Bombs in My Coochie” here.Read Toi Derricotte's poem “On the Turning Up of Unidentified Black Female Corpses” here. If you'd like to read more about “Missing White Woman Syndrome,” here's a great article in the New Yorker where true-crime scholar Jean Murley discusses the history of it.Read Derrick Austin's poem “Taking My Father and Brother to The Frick."  You can see Derrick Austin read (with Ashley M. Jones) here.Matt Donovan's poem “Shooting Justin Bieber and bin Laden in the Woods” in the Massachussets Review here.  Visit Matt Donovan online at his website at: https://mattdonovanwriting.comRead James Harms's poem “Mexican Christmas” here. Eugenia Leigh's poem “Monsters” from her first book, Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows, can be read  here.  Her 2nd book, Bianca, is getting rave reviews!  Order it now here.  And visit Eugenia Leigh online at https://www.eugenialeigh.com

In 2022 Poetry Spoken Here celebrated its 200th episode. We had guests from across the United States and around the world. We also shared even more readings from the Unamuno Author Festival which took place in 2019. Guests you will hear on this episode include Ashley M. Jones, the first Black Poet Laureate of Alabama, Emmy Award-Winning Director Violet Du Feng, Polaris Award-Winning throat-singer, poet, and activist Tanya Tagaq and many, many more. In order or appearance in the show: Episode 181: Ashley M. Jones: https://soundcloud.com/poetry-spoken-here/episode-180-ashley-m-jones-poet-laureate-of-alabama Episode 182: Jonathan Mayers: https://soundcloud.com/poetry-spoken-here/episode-182-jonathan-mayers-poet-laureate-of-baton-rouge-on-writing-in-english-and-kouri-vini Episode 198: Marty Gervais https://soundcloud.com/poetry-spoken-here/episode-198-marty-gervais-first-poet-laureate-of-windsor-ontario-shares-tales-from-the-road Episode 200: Tanya Tagaq: https://soundcloud.com/poetry-spoken-here/episode-200-tanya-tagaq-reads-from-split-tooth Episode 189: Wendy Hind: https://soundcloud.com/poetry-spoken-here/episode-189-open-mic-of-the-air-11 Episode 190: Teresa Dzieglewicz: https://soundcloud.com/poetry-spoken-here/episode-190-teresa-dzieglewicz-on-teaching-at-standing-rock Episode 195: Jim Cohn: https://soundcloud.com/poetry-spoken-here/episode-195-jim-cohn-and-the-power-of-the-storm-anthology Episode 204: Violet Du Feng: https://soundcloud.com/poetry-spoken-here/episode-204-violet-du-feng-director-of-hidden-letters-on-the-secret-language-of-chinese-women Episode 202: Aracelis Girmay: https://soundcloud.com/poetry-spoken-here/episode-202-aracelis-girmay-reading-at-the-unamuno-author-festival SUBMIT TO THE OPEN MIC OF THE AIR! www.poetryspokenhere.com/open-mic-of-the-air Visit our website: www.poetryspokenhere.com Like us on facebook: facebook.com/PoetrySpokenHere Follow us on twitter: twitter.com/poseyspokenhere (@poseyspokenhere) Send us an e-mail: poetryspokenhere@gmail.com SUBMIT TO THE OPEN MIC OF THE AIR! www.poetryspokenhere.com/open-mic-of-the-air Visit our website: www.poetryspokenhere.com Like us on facebook: facebook.com/PoetrySpokenHere Follow us on twitter: twitter.com/poseyspokenhere (@poseyspokenhere) Send us an e-mail: poetryspokenhere@gmail.com

Today's poem is Photosynthesis by Ashley M. Jones. This episode was originally released on June 17, 2022.

This week, Ashley M. Jones speaks with Marcus Wicker about a project he began early in the pandemic while looking for sources of calm in books and music. Many of these were space-influenced—OutKast's album ATLiens, Robert Hayden's poem “American Journal”—and Wicker began exploring what an extraterrestrial who lands in Atlanta in 2020 would think of America and the way humans treat one another. We'll hear two poems from this project, “Dear Mothership,” and “How did you learn to speak English?” which appear in Poetry's December 2022 issue. Like much of Wicker's poetry, these pieces incorporate popular culture and music references alongside unflinching observations and exciting wordplay.

In this episode Anne Kimzey talks with Ashley M. Jones, poet laureate for the State of Alabama and recipient of a fellowship in poetry from the Alabama State Council on the Arts. Ms. Jones describes the deep feeling she has for her home state of Alabama and how she came to appreciate her identity as an Alabamian after moving to Miami to attend graduate school.

Today's poem is Photosynthesis by Ashley M. Jones.

Today's poem is Photosynthesis by Ashley M. Jones.

Ashley M. Jones is Alabama's first African American Poet Laureate, and she's also the youngest. Her books are Magic City Gospel, dark // thing, and REPARATIONS NOW! She teaches creative writing at the Alabama School of Fine Arts and also at the Low Residency MFA program at Converse University. Phillis Wheatley Peters was abducted in West Africa and brought to Boston where she was sold as a slave when she was around seven year old. Her first and only book, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, was published in 1773. She was in poor health for most of her life, and she died in her early thirties. According to the Smithsonian Institute, she was the “first American slave, the first person of African descent, and only the third colonial American woman to have her work published.” Links: Read the poems https://inspicio.fiu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Ashley-M-Jones-V2.pdf (Think of a Marvelous Thing / It's the Same as Having Wings at Inspicio Arts) https://main.oxfordamerican.org/magazine/item/1698-four-poems ("Harriet Tubman Crosses the Mason-Dixon for the First Time" at Oxford American) https://poets.org/poem/being-brought-africa-america ("On Being Brought from Africa to America" at poets.org) Ashley M. Jones https://ashleymjonespoetry.com/ (Ashley M. Jones' website) Jones' Bio and Poems at the Poetry Foundation https://www.npr.org/2021/09/08/1031840999/ashley-m-jones-alabama-poet-laureate-reparations-now (“Alabama's First Black Poet Laureate Takes A Personal Approach To 'Reparations” on NPR) https://www.reckonsouth.com/ashley-m-jones-alabamas-youngest-first-black-and-possibly-dopest-poet-laureate-on-the-need-for-reparations-now-tomorrow-and-forever/ (Interview with Ashley M. Jones at The Reckon) https://therumpus.net/2018/08/01/the-rumpus-interview-with-ashley-m-jones/ (“How to Become a Poet: A Conversation with Ashley M. Jones” at The Rumpus) Phillis Wheatley Peters https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/phillis-wheatley (Bio and Poems at the Poetry Foundation ) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/finding-multiple-truths-in-works-enslaved-poet-phillis-wheatley-180975163/ (“The Multiple Truths in the Works of Enslaved Poet Phillis Wheatley” by Drea Brown) http://www.phillis-wheatley.org/ (Phillis Wheatley Historical Society) https://www.masshist.org/features/endofslavery/wheatley (Wheatley's Bio and Poems at Massachusetts Historical Society Collections Online) Music is by https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chad_Crouch/ (Chad Crouch). https://the-beat.captivate.fm/rate (Rate & review on Podchaser) Mentioned in this episode: KnoxCountyLibrary.org Thank you for listening and sharing this podcast. Explore life-changing resources and events, sign up for newsletters, follow us on social media, and more through our website, www.knoxcountylibrary.org. https://the-beat.captivate.fm/rate (Rate & review on Podchaser)

Ashley M. Jones is Alabama's first African American Poet Laureate, and she's also the youngest. Her books are Magic City Gospel, dark // thing, and REPARATIONS NOW! She teaches creative writing at the Alabama School of Fine Arts and also at the Low Residency MFA program at Converse University. Phillis Wheatley Peters was abducted in West Africa and brought to Boston where she was sold as a slave when she was around seven year old. Her first and only book, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, was published in 1773. She was in poor health for most of her life, and she died in her early thirties. According to the Smithsonian Institute, she was the “first American slave, the first person of African descent, and only the third colonial American woman to have her work published.” https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chad_Crouch/ (Music )by Chad Crouch Links: Read the poems https://inspicio.fiu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Ashley-M-Jones-V2.pdf (Think of a Marvelous Thing / It's the Same as Having Wings at Inspicio Arts) https://main.oxfordamerican.org/magazine/item/1698-four-poems ("Harriet Tubman Crosses the Mason-Dixon for the First Time" at Oxford American) https://poets.org/poem/being-brought-africa-america ("On Being Brought from Africa to America" at poets.org) Ashley M. Jones https://ashleymjonespoetry.com/ (Ashley M. Jones' website) https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/ashley-jones (Jones' Bio and Poems at the Poetry Foundation ) https://www.npr.org/2021/09/08/1031840999/ashley-m-jones-alabama-poet-laureate-reparations-now (“Alabama's First Black Poet Laureate Takes A Personal Approach To 'Reparations” on NPR) https://www.reckonsouth.com/ashley-m-jones-alabamas-youngest-first-black-and-possibly-dopest-poet-laureate-on-the-need-for-reparations-now-tomorrow-and-forever/ (Interview with Ashley M. Jones at The Reckon) https://therumpus.net/2018/08/01/the-rumpus-interview-with-ashley-m-jones/ (“How to Become a Poet: A Conversation with Ashley M. Jones” at The Rumpus) Phillis Wheatley Peters https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/phillis-wheatley (Bio and Poems at the Poetry Foundation ) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/finding-multiple-truths-in-works-enslaved-poet-phillis-wheatley-180975163/ (“The Multiple Truths in the Works of Enslaved Poet Phillis Wheatley” by Drea Brown) http://www.phillis-wheatley.org/ (Phillis Wheatley Historical Society) https://www.masshist.org/features/endofslavery/wheatley (Wheatley's Bio and Poems at Massachusetts Historical Society Collections Online) Mentioned in this episode: KnoxCountyLibrary.org Thank you for listening and sharing this podcast. Explore life-changing resources and events, sign up for newsletters, follow us on social media, and more through our website, www.knoxcountylibrary.org. https://pods.knoxlib.org/rate (Rate & review on Podchaser)

It's a solo episode! Mary and Wyatt take a break from our amazing slate of guests to check in about how they're holding up during a tumultuous couple of weeks. Also on the agenda: art made of candy, bald eagle webcams, and poems by Wendell Berry and Ashley M. Jones. 

Ashley M. Jones is Poet Laureate of the state of Alabama (2022-2026). She holds an MFA in Poetry from Florida International University, and she is the author of Magic City Gospel (Hub City Press 2017), dark / / thing (Pleiades Press 2019), and REPARATIONS NOW! (Hub City Press 2021). 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. She was a finalist for the Ruth Lily Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship in 2020, and her collection, REPARATIONS NOW! was on the longlist for the 2022 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry. 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 Creative Writing at the Alabama School of Fine Arts and in the Low Residency MFA at Converse University. Jones co-directs PEN Birmingham, and she is the founding director of the Magic City Poetry Festival. She recently served as a guest editor for Poetry Magazine. Scott Evan Davis is a multi-award winning composer/lyricist and social media personality. Scott has performed concerts and song cycles of his music throughout the USA as well as internationally. His two albums, Next and Cautiously Optimistic are available worldwide and feature a host of Broadway talent. Currently Scott is developing his first full -length musical called INDIGO, with Sing Out Louise Productions. The show is about a non- verbal girl with autism who teaches everyone around her how to truly communicate. Scott's awards include the 2017 MAC award for Best Song, the 2012 Broadway World award for Best Original Song for “If We Say Goodbye,” and the 2016 ASCAP GORNEY award for his song “If the World Only Knew” for its social message. His newest single “Falling Everyday” is available on all streaming platforms. More at www.scottevandavis.com Ashley Griggs is a screenwriter who hails from Herndon, VA. She earned her BA in Film Studies and French at the College of William & Mary, and later received her MFA in Dramatic Writing from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University where she was awarded a Future Screenwriters Fellowship. In addition to screenwriting, Ashley has done work for the Cannes Film Festival and Austin Film Festival, written for the narrative podcast The Host, directed plays in NYC and LA, and mentors teens with nonprofit WriteGirl LA. Ashley currently works with the Writers' Program and Entertainment Studies division at UCLA Extension and lives in Los Angeles. Music: “You Don't Always Get What You Want” Rolling Stones “Falling Everyday” Lyrics by Scott Evan Davis and performed by Joey Auch Special Thanks Goes to: Woodbridge Inn: www.woodbridgeinnjasper.com Autism Speaks: www.autismspeaks.org Mostly Mutts: www.mostlymutts.org Meadowbrook Inn: www.meadowbrook-inn.com The Red Phone Booth: www.redphonebooth.com The host, Clifford Brooks, The Draw of Broken Eyes & Whirling Metaphysics and Athena Departs are available everywhere books are sold. His chapbook, Exiles of Eden, is only available through my website. To find them all, please reach out to him at: cliffordbrooks@southerncollectiveexperience.com Check out his Teachable courses on thriving with autism and creative writing as a profession here: www.brooks-sessions.teachable.com

Listen in to our latest podcast with Ashley M. Jones, the first person of color to be the Poet Laureate for the state of Alabama. Ms. Jones shares what it means to her to hold this post, the magic in the Magic City, and lessons we can all learn from the movie Frozen. Join us.

Newly appointed Alabama Poet Laureate, Ashley M. Jones discusses taking complicated inspiration from James Brown, contrapuntal poems, and her plans for poetry in Alabama. She also reads from her new book "Reparations Now!" Jones is the first Black poet laureate in Alabama's history. Learn more about Ashley M. Jones on her website: https://ashleymjonespoetry.com/ Get a copy of "Reparations Now!" here: https://www.hubcity.org/books/poetry/reparations-now SUBMIT TO THE OPEN MIC OF THE AIR! www.poetryspokenhere.com/open-mic-of-the-air Visit our website: www.poetryspokenhere.com Like us on facebook: facebook.com/PoetrySpokenHere Follow us on twitter: twitter.com/poseyspokenhere (@poseyspokenhere) Send us an e-mail: poetryspokenhere@gmail.com

As we close out 2021, this episode is perfectly timed. While recorded in mid-November, we're releasing it now. Listen in as SNT speaks candidly with Poet Laureate Ashley M. Jones (Alabama's first black person to hold the position) about dreams, goals, and taking actionable steps to live life the way you want. Additionally, Ms. Jones reads from her third book of poetry, Reparations Now. Get prepared to drop in heavy with the gravity of her words. Hello, Somebody. Thank you all for listening to Season 2 of Hello Somebody! It has been a pleasure to spend time with you in 2021 as we uplifted change so that we may all live better lives. See you in 2022! Ashley M. Jones Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Poetry is a powerful way to rise above the noise, show vulnerability, and spark meaningful dialogue. 

TIMESTAMPS00:00:50 - Introductions00:02:45 - Flight Deck: OBS Defends OBJ with Game Tape00:23:30 - ‘NEEDS' Introduction & Lyric Video00:51:55 - Gimme Some Headlines I: Flowers & Groundbreaking01:10:10 - Gimme Some Timeline: Astroworld & Transition01:23:20 - Chop Session: Drink Champs - Ye (Interview)01:37:10 - Gimme Some Headlines II: Issa Rae, Can't Stop Won't Stop02:03:20 - That's A Bet: Houston Open02:17:05 - Welcome to the Black Market - Project Row Houses02:29:30 - Tell Me Something Good: God Body Bingo EPISODE PLAYLISTGSH Theme Song x C.O.D. DecaturboyMusicCalifornia Roll x C.O.D. DecaturboyMusic ft. Buckhead ReddNeeds x C.O.D. DecaturboyMusicLate Nights x C.O.D. DecaturboyMusic“Episode 2” TV N Da Studio x C.O.D. DecaturboyMusic“Episode 3” TV N Da Studio x C.O.D. DecaturboyMusic“Episode 6” TV N Da Studio x C.O.D. DecaturboyMusic“Episode 2” TV N Da Studio x C.O.D. DecaturboyMusic“Episode 8” TV N Da Studio x C.O.D. DecaturboyMusicBrand New x C.O.D. DecaturboyMusic + P. Henry Trotter IVImported (Remix) x C.O.D. DecaturboyMusic + P. Henry Trotter IV“Episode 9” TV N Da Studio x C.O.D. DecaturboyMusic LINKSGSH I - Ashley M. Jones - https://goodblacknews.org/2021/11/05/birmingham-native-and-reparations-now-author-ashley-m-jones-named-poet-laureate-of-alabama/GST - Astroworld - https://www.npr.org/2021/11/06/1053177597/houston-concert-deaths-astroworld-festival-travis-scottChop Session - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27NstO1qOJkGSH I - Issa Rae - https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/issa-rae-e2-80-99s-reality-show-e2-80-98sweet-life-los-angeles-e2-80-99-renewed-at-hbo-max/ar-AAQkM8nBlack Market - Project Row Houses - https://projectrowhouses.org/TSG - God Body Bingo - https://www.houstoniamag.com/arts-and-culture/2021/08/god-body-bingos-debut-album SOCIAL MEDIAIG - https://www.instagram.com/gimmesomeheadlines/Twitter - https://twitter.com/GimmeSomeHead_sTikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@gimmesomeheadlines?lang=en

We're talking to Ashley M. Jones, who recently made history as Alabama's 1st Black Poet Laureate. She talks about her new book of poetry: Reparations Now! She's using her poetic voice and words to shine a light on race, social justice, injustice and how reparations is more than just writing a check. Host: Vanessa Echols Guest: Ashley M. Jones Producer: Ashley Long

As contemporary as they come, these poets explore current landscapes, tangled legacies, and the debts we owe through language that digs deep, holds fast, and can't soon be forgotten.Panelists:Adam Clay was born and raised in Mississippi. He is the author of four book of poems. His most recent collection, To Make Room for the Sea, was published by Milkweed Editions in 2020. His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Denver Quarterly, Tin House, Bennington Review, Georgia Review, Boston Review, Iowa Review, and elsewhere. He is a recipient of a fellowship from the Mississippi Arts Commission. He directs the Center for Writers at The University of Southern Mississippi, where he teaches creative writing and edits Mississippi Review.Ashley M. Jones holds an MFA in Poetry from Florida International University, and she is the author of Magic City Gospel and dark / / thing. 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. 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.Catherine Pierce is the author of four books of poems: Danger Days (2020), The Tornado Is the World (2016), The Girls of Peculiar (2012), and Famous Last Words (2008), winner of the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize. Each of her last three books received the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Poetry Prize. She is a two-time Pushcart Prize winner and the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Mississippi Arts Commission. Pierce's work has appeared in The Best American Poetry, The New York Times, American Poetry Review, The Nation, The Southern Review, the Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day series, and elsewhere. She is professor of English and co-director of the creative writing program at Mississippi State University.Richard Boada is the author of the poetry collections: We Find Each Other in the Darkness, The Error of Nostalgia, and Archipelago Sinking. He is the recipient of the 2020 Mississippi Arts Commission Poetry Fellowship and has been nominated for the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Poetry Award in 2013, 2015, and 2021. He is a graduate of the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi. His poetry appears in The Southern Poetry Anthology, Urban Voices: 51 Poets / 51 Poems, Rhino, Crab Orchard Review, Poetry East, North American Review, and Third Coast, among others. Currently, he teaches creative writing at the West Virginia Wesleyan College MFA Low Residency Program. Sandra Beasley is the author of four poetry collections-Made to Explode, Count the Waves, I Was the Jukebox, which won the 2009 Barnard Women Poets Prize, and Theories of Falling-as well as Don't Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life, a disability memoir and cultural history of food allergies. She served as the editor for Vinegar and Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways Alliance. Honors for her work include the 2019 Munster Literature Centre's John Montague International Poetry Fellowship, a 2015 NEA fellowship, and five DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities fellowships. She lives in Washington, D.C.Moderator:Derrick Harriell is the author of Stripper in Wonderland (LSU Press, 2017). He is an Associate Professor of English and African American Studies at the University of Mississippi. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

"Reparations Now!" the latest collection of poetry from Ashley M. Jones is a stirring message from the heart of the Deep South. Jones was just named poet laureate of Alabama, the youngest person and first Black Alabamian to hold the title. On the Reckon Interview, she discusses hearing everyday poetry in Alabama, her works that confront that the South's past and present, the legacy of Black womanhood and more. She also reads three selections from her new collection."Reparations Now! is available from Hub City Press at hubcity.org. Learn more about Ashley M. Jones at https://ashleymjonespoetry.com/. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Show Notes (More Show Notes available at ourfaithinwriting.com (https://www.ourfaithinwriting.com/writing-and-faith/our-faith-in-writing-podcast)) Our Faith in Writing explores the intersection of writing and faith through conversations about the writing process, the reading life, contemplative practices, and more. Host Charlotte Donlon is a writer and a spiritual director for writers, and she believes writing and reading help us belong to ourselves, others, God, and the world. Subscribe to Our Faith in Writing wherever you listen to podcasts, and don't forget to rate and review the show letting us know how these conversations are helping you feel less alone in your writing life and your reading life. More about Reparations Now! Reparations Now! asks for what's owed. In formal and non-traditional poems, award-winning poet Ashley M. Jones calls for long-overdue reparations to the Black descendants of enslaved people in the United States of America. In this, her third collection, Jones deftly takes on the worst of today—state-sanctioned violence, pandemic-induced crises, and white silence—all while uplifting Black joy. These poems explore trauma past and present, cultural and personal: the lynching of young, pregnant Mary Turner in 1918; the current white nationalist political movement; a case of infidelity. These poems, too, are a celebration of Black life and art: a beloved grandmother in rural Alabama, the music of James Brown and Al Green, and the soil where okra, pole beans, and collards thrive thanks to her father's hands. By exploring the history of a nation where “Black oppression's not happenstance; it's the law,” Jones links past harm to modern heartache and prays for a peaceful world where one finds paradise in the garden in the afternoon with her family, together, safe, and worry-free. While exploring the ways we navigate our relationships with ourselves and others, Jones holds us all accountable, asking us to see the truth, to make amends, to honor one another. More about Ashley M. Jones 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. Ashley was recently named the new Alabama State Poet Laureate. 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 and essays appear or are forthcoming in many journals and anthologies, including CNN, the Academy of American Poets, POETRY, Tupelo Quarterly, Prelude, Steel Toe Review, Fjords Review, and elsewhere. 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. Ashley's 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. Her second book, dark // thing, won the 2018 Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize for Poetry from Pleiades Press. Her third collection, REPARATIONS NOW! is forthcoming in Fall 2021 from Hub City Press. Ashley has won several prizes including the 2018 Lucille Clifton Poetry Prize from Backbone Press and a Poetry Fellowship from the Alabama State Council on the Arts.She currently lives in Birmingham, Alabama, where she is founding director of the Magic City Poetry Festival, board member of the Alabama Writers Cooperative and the Alabama Writers Forum, co-director of PEN Birmingham, and a faculty member in the Creative Writing Department of the Alabama School of Fine Arts. Jones is also a member of the Core Faculty at the Converse College Low Residency MFA Program. She recently served as a guest editor for Poetry Magazine. Learn more about Ashley, her work, and her writing at ashleymjonespoetry.com. More about Kaveh Akbar Kaveh Akbar's poems appear in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Paris Review, Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. His second full-length volume of poetry, Pilgrim Bell, will be published by Graywolf in August 2021. His debut, Calling a Wolf a Wolf, is out now with Alice James in the US and Penguin in the UK. He is also the author of the chapbook, Portrait of the Alcoholic, published in 2016 by Sibling Rivalry Press. In 2022, Penguin Classics will publish a new anthology edited by Kaveh: The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse: 100 Poets on the Divine In 2020 Kaveh was named Poetry Editor of The Nation. The recipient of honors including multiple Pushcart Prizes, a Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship, and the Levis Reading Prize, Kaveh was born in Tehran, Iran, and teaches at Purdue University and in the low-residency MFA programs at Randolph College and Warren Wilson. In 2014, Kaveh founded Divedapper, a home for dialogues with the most vital voices in American poetry. With Sarah Kay and Claire Schwartz, he wrote a weekly column for the Paris Review called "Poetry RX." Learn more about Kaveh, his work, and his writing at kavehakbar.com. Charlotte Donlon is a writer, a spiritual director for writers, and the founder and host of the Our Faith in Writing podcast and website (https://www.ourfaithinwriting.com/). Charlotte's writing and work are rooted in noticing how art helps us belong to ourselves, others, God, and the world. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Curator, The Christian Century, Christianity Today, Catapult, The Millions, Mockingbird, and elsewhere. Her first book is The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other (https://charlottedonlon.com/the-great-belonging-book). You can subscribe to her newsletter (https://charlottedonlon.substack.com/) and connect with her onTwitter (https://twitter.com/charlottedonlon) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/charlottedonlon/).

Show Notes (More Show Notes available at ourfaithinwriting.com (https://www.ourfaithinwriting.com/writing-and-faith/our-faith-in-writing-podcast)) Our Faith in Writing explores the intersection of writing and faith through conversations about the writing process, the reading life, contemplative practices, and more. Host Charlotte Donlon is a writer and a spiritual director for writers, and she believes writing and reading help us belong to ourselves, others, God, and the world. Subscribe to Our Faith in Writing wherever you listen to podcasts, and don't forget to rate and review the show letting us know how these conversations are helping you feel less alone in your writing life and your reading life. Kaveh Akbar and Ashley M. Jones joined Charlotte for a conversation about Kaveh's newest book of poems, Pilgrim Bell which is available now wherever books are sold. Kaveh and Ashley discussed a few of Kaveh's poems from Pilgrim Bell, explored how poems help us feel connected to our loved ones who have died, shared what it's like to write about their parents, and more. The three also talked about how writing and reading help us belong to ourselves, others, the world, and the divine. More about Pilgrim Bell With formal virtuosity and ruthless precision, Kaveh Akbar's second collection takes its readers on a spiritual journey of disavowal, fiercely attendant to the presence of divinity where artifacts of self and belonging have been shed. How does one recover from addiction without destroying the self-as-addict? And if living justly in a nation that would see them erased is, too, a kind of self-destruction, what does one do with the body's question, “what now shall I repair?” Here, Akbar responds with prayer as an act of devotion to dissonance—the infinite void of a loved one's absence, the indulgence of austerity, making a life as a Muslim in an Islamophobic nation—teasing the sacred out of silence and stillness. Richly crafted and generous, Pilgrim Bell's linguistic rigor is tuned to the register of this moment and any moment. As the swinging soul crashes into its limits, against the atrocities of the American empire, and through a profoundly human capacity for cruelty and grace, these brilliant poems dare to exist in the empty space where song lives—resonant, revelatory, and holy. More about Kaveh Akbar Kaveh Akbar's poems appear in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Paris Review, Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. His second full-length volume of poetry, Pilgrim Bell, will be published by Graywolf in August 2021. His debut, Calling a Wolf a Wolf, is out now with Alice James in the US and Penguin in the UK. He is also the author of the chapbook, Portrait of the Alcoholic, published in 2016 by Sibling Rivalry Press. In 2022, Penguin Classics will publish a new anthology edited by Kaveh: The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse: 100 Poets on the Divine In 2020 Kaveh was named Poetry Editor of The Nation. The recipient of honors including multiple Pushcart Prizes, a Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship, and the Levis Reading Prize, Kaveh was born in Tehran, Iran, and teaches at Purdue University and in the low-residency MFA programs at Randolph College and Warren Wilson. In 2014, Kaveh founded Divedapper, a home for dialogues with the most vital voices in American poetry. With Sarah Kay and Claire Schwartz, he wrote a weekly column for the Paris Review called "Poetry RX." More about Ashley M. Jones 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 and essays appear or are forthcoming in many journals and anthologies, including CNN, the Academy of American Poets, POETRY, Tupelo Quarterly, Prelude, Steel Toe Review, Fjords Review, and elsewhere. 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. Her second book, dark // thing, won the 2018 Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize for Poetry from Pleiades Press. Her third collection, REPARATIONS NOW! is forthcoming in Fall 2021 from Hub City Press. Ashley has won several prizes including the 2018 Lucille Clifton Poetry Prize from Backbone Press and a Poetry Fellowship from the Alabama State Council on the Arts.She currently lives in Birmingham, Alabama, where she is founding director of the Magic City Poetry Festival, board member of the Alabama Writers Cooperative and the Alabama Writers Forum, co-director of PEN Birmingham, and a faculty member in the Creative Writing Department of the Alabama School of Fine Arts. Jones is also a member of the Core Faculty at the Converse College Low Residency MFA Program. She recently served as a guest editor for Poetry Magazine. Charlotte Donlon is a writer, a spiritual director for writers, and the founder and host of the Our Faith in Writing podcast and website (https://www.ourfaithinwriting.com/). Charlotte's writing and work are rooted in noticing how art helps us belong to ourselves, others, God, and the world. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Curator, The Christian Century, Christianity Today, Catapult, The Millions, Mockingbird, and elsewhere. Her first book is The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other (https://charlottedonlon.com/the-great-belonging-book). You can subscribe to her newsletter (https://charlottedonlon.substack.com/) and connect with her onTwitter (https://twitter.com/charlottedonlon) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/charlottedonlon/).

Show Notes (More Show Notes available at ourfaithinwriting.com (https://www.ourfaithinwriting.com/writing-and-faith/our-faith-in-writing-podcast)) Our Faith in Writing explores the intersection of writing and faith through conversations about the writing process, the reading life, contemplative practices, and more. Host Charlotte Donlon is a writer and a spiritual director for writers, and she believes writing and reading help us belong to ourselves, others, God, and the world. Subscribe to Our Faith in Writing wherever you listen to podcasts, and don't forget to rate and review the show letting us know how these conversations are helping you feel less alone in your writing life and your reading life. Kaveh Akbar and Ashley M. Jones join Charlotte for a conversation about Kaveh's newest book of poems, Pilgrim Bell which is available now wherever books are sold. Kaveh and Ashley discussed a few of Kaveh's poems from Pilgrim Bell, explored how poems help us feel connected to our loved ones who have died, shared what it's like to write about their parents, and more. The three also talked about how writing and reading help us belong to ourselves, others, the world, and the divine. More about Pilgrim Bell With formal virtuosity and ruthless precision, Kaveh Akbar's second collection takes its readers on a spiritual journey of disavowal, fiercely attendant to the presence of divinity where artifacts of self and belonging have been shed. How does one recover from addiction without destroying the self-as-addict? And if living justly in a nation that would see them erased is, too, a kind of self-destruction, what does one do with the body's question, “what now shall I repair?” Here, Akbar responds with prayer as an act of devotion to dissonance—the infinite void of a loved one's absence, the indulgence of austerity, making a life as a Muslim in an Islamophobic nation—teasing the sacred out of silence and stillness. Richly crafted and generous, Pilgrim Bell's linguistic rigor is tuned to the register of this moment and any moment. As the swinging soul crashes into its limits, against the atrocities of the American empire, and through a profoundly human capacity for cruelty and grace, these brilliant poems dare to exist in the empty space where song lives—resonant, revelatory, and holy. More about Kaveh Akbar Kaveh Akbar's poems appear in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Paris Review, Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. His second full-length volume of poetry, Pilgrim Bell, will be published by Graywolf in August 2021. His debut, Calling a Wolf a Wolf, is out now with Alice James in the US and Penguin in the UK. He is also the author of the chapbook, Portrait of the Alcoholic, published in 2016 by Sibling Rivalry Press. In 2022, Penguin Classics will publish a new anthology edited by Kaveh: The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse: 100 Poets on the Divine In 2020 Kaveh was named Poetry Editor of The Nation. The recipient of honors including multiple Pushcart Prizes, a Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship, and the Levis Reading Prize, Kaveh was born in Tehran, Iran, and teaches at Purdue University and in the low-residency MFA programs at Randolph College and Warren Wilson. In 2014, Kaveh founded Divedapper, a home for dialogues with the most vital voices in American poetry. With Sarah Kay and Claire Schwartz, he wrote a weekly column for the Paris Review called "Poetry RX." More about Ashley M. Jones 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 and essays appear or are forthcoming in many journals and anthologies, including CNN, the Academy of American Poets, POETRY, Tupelo Quarterly, Prelude, Steel Toe Review, Fjords Review, and elsewhere. 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. Her second book, dark // thing, won the 2018 Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize for Poetry from Pleiades Press. Her third collection, REPARATIONS NOW! is forthcoming in Fall 2021 from Hub City Press. Ashley has won several prizes including the 2018 Lucille Clifton Poetry Prize from Backbone Press and a Poetry Fellowship from the Alabama State Council on the Arts.She currently lives in Birmingham, Alabama, where she is founding director of the Magic City Poetry Festival, board member of the Alabama Writers Cooperative and the Alabama Writers Forum, co-director of PEN Birmingham, and a faculty member in the Creative Writing Department of the Alabama School of Fine Arts. Jones is also a member of the Core Faculty at the Converse College Low Residency MFA Program. She recently served as a guest editor for Poetry Magazine. Charlotte Donlon is a writer, a spiritual director for writers, and the founder and host of the Our Faith in Writing podcast and website (https://www.ourfaithinwriting.com/). Charlotte's writing and work are rooted in noticing how art helps us belong to ourselves, others, God, and the world. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Curator, The Christian Century, Christianity Today, Catapult, The Millions, Mockingbird, and elsewhere. Her first book is The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other (https://charlottedonlon.com/the-great-belonging-book). You can subscribe to her newsletter (https://charlottedonlon.substack.com/) and connect with her onTwitter (https://twitter.com/charlottedonlon) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/charlottedonlon/).

Show Notes (More Show Notes available at ourfaithinwriting.com (https://www.ourfaithinwriting.com/writing-and-faith/our-faith-in-writing-podcast)) Our Faith in Writing explores the intersection of writing and faith through conversations about the writing process, the reading life, contemplative practices, and more. Host Charlotte Donlon is a writer and a spiritual director for writers, and she believes writing and reading help us belong to ourselves, others, God, and the world. Subscribe to Our Faith in Writing wherever you listen to podcasts, and don't forget to rate and review the show letting us know how these conversations are helping you feel less alone in your writing life and your reading life. Our Faith in Writing is a podcast that explores the intersection of writing and faith through conversations about the writing process, the reading life, contemplative practices, and more. In this episode, Charlotte talks to poet Ashley M. Jones about her writing life, her faith, and more. Ashley M. Jones holds an MFA in Poetry from Florida International University, and she is the author of Magic City Gospel (Hub City Press 2017), dark / / thing (Pleiades Press 2019), and REPARATIONS NOW! (Hub City Press 2021). 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. She was a finalist for the Ruth Lily Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship in 2020. 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. She currently serves as the O'Neal Library's Lift Every Voice Scholar and as a guest editor for Poetry Magazine. Charlotte Donlon is a writer, a spiritual director for writers, and the founder and host of the Our Faith in Writing podcast and website (https://www.ourfaithinwriting.com/). Charlotte's writing and work are rooted in noticing how art helps us belong to ourselves, others, God, and the world. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Curator, The Christian Century, Christianity Today, Catapult, The Millions, Mockingbird, and elsewhere. Her first book is The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other (https://charlottedonlon.com/the-great-belonging-book). You can subscribe to her newsletter (https://charlottedonlon.substack.com/) and connect with her onTwitter (https://twitter.com/charlottedonlon) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/charlottedonlon/).

Hear Alabama State's Poet Laureate, Ashley Jones discuss growing up in Alabama, becoming a 'Southern Writer,' and publishing three award-winning poetry collections. To purchase her latest book of poetry: https://www.hubcity.org/books/poetry/reparations-now To learn more about the host: www.authormichelledjackson.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/michelle-denise-jackson/message

artandfaithunplugged.com](https://www.artandfaithunplugged.com/) When it seems like too many things are falling apart and too many people are being too terrible, it's easy to become too hopeless, too discouraged, and too angry. Instead of complaining and raging about the church's failures, the government's failures, and everyone else's failures, we can focus more on things like art and faith that help us navigate the joys and pains of everyday life. Art matters because it helps us belong to ourselves, others, God, and the world. Art and Faith Unplugged and its host Charlotte Donlon make space for conversations and writing that explore how art deepens our belongings and the ways art intersects with faith, doubt, and mystery. Welcome. We hope Art and Faith Unplugged helps you notice the ways art and faith help you flourish and belong. Visit artandfaithunplugged.com (https://www.artandfaithunplugged.com/) for the show notes for this episode, essays, articles, and news about art, faith, and belonging. Ashley M. Jones and Kaveh Akbar join Charlotte for a conversation about Ashley's newest book of poems, Reparations Now!, which is available now wherever books are sold. Ashley and Kaveh discuss a few of Ashley's poems from Reparations Now! and explore how poems and writing poetry help us belong to ourselves, others, God, and the world. Also, thunder makes several appearances, which is pretty cool. Learn more about Ashley, her work, and her writing at https://ashleymjonespoetry.com/ Learn more about Kaveh, his work, and his writing at http://kavehakbar.com/ _More about Art and Faith Unplugged's host: Charlotte Donlon is a writer, a certified spiritual director for writers at Writing Life Spiritual Direction (https://www.writinglifespiritualdirection.com/), and host of Art and Faith Unplugged (https://www.artandfaithunplugged.com/). Charlotte's writing and work are rooted in noticing how art helps us belong to ourselves, others, God, and the world. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Curator, The Christian Century, Christianity Today, Catapult, The Millions, Mockingbird, and elsewhere. Her first book is The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other (https://charlottedonlon.com/the-great-belonging-book). You can subscribe to her newsletter (https://charlottedonlon.substack.com/) and connect with her on Twitter (https://twitter.com/charlottedonlon) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/charlottedonlon/).

In this episode, Clifford Brooks and Michael Amidei interview poet Ashley M. Jones. Ashley M. Jones (https://ashleymjonespoetry.com/) is Poet Laureate of the state of Alabama (2022-2026). She 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 and essays appear or are forthcoming in many journals and anthologies, including CNN, the Academy of American Poets, POETRY, 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. Her second book, dark // thing, won the 2018 Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize for Poetry from Pleiades Press. Her third collection, REPARATIONS NOW! is forthcoming in Fall 2021 from Hub City Press. She won the 2018 Lucille Clifton Poetry Prize from Backbone Press, and she is the 2019 winner of the Lucille Clifton Legacy Award from St. Mary's College of Maryland. Jones is a recipient of a Poetry Fellowship from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and a 2020 Alabama Author award from the Alabama Library Association. She was a finalist for the Ruth Lily Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship in 2020. She currently lives in Birmingham, Alabama, where she is founding director of the Magic City Poetry Festival, board member of the Alabama Writers Cooperative and the Alabama Writers Forum, co-director of PEN Birmingham, and a faculty member in the Creative Writing Department of the Alabama School of Fine Arts. Jones is also a member of the Core Faculty at the Converse College Low Residency MFA Program. She recently served as a guest editor for Poetry Magazine.

This week, Fred Sasaki had the very special honor of interviewing his friend and colleague, Ashley M. Jones. Jones guest edited the late spring and summer issues of Poetry magazine during a remarkable time in the publication's history. In this conversation, we hear Jones read from her new book, Reparations Now! Sasaki asks, what are reparations and what do they mean? When did that idea materialize in each of their minds? They also talk about being Gods, being too cool for school, and playing with Barbies.

When Ashley M. Jones first heard the poetry of Jacqueline Allen Trimble, Jones says she heard something “Southern, unapologetically Black, fierce, sweet, and strong.” This week, Jones and Trimble talk about Alabama, activism, and the under-recognized power of historically Black colleges and universities in America. You'll hear Trimble's poems “This Is Why People Burning Down Fast Food Joints and Whatnot” and “The Language of Joy” from the July/August issue of Poetry.

UPDATE: For those who want to help Haiti, M.J. suggests there are two options for two different solid organizations. Ayiti Community Trust and Fokal.   and ************************************************************** Claudia Cragg (@claudiacragg) speaks here with M.J. Fièvre, 9@MJ_Fievre), a -born writer and educator who has lived in  since 2002. Her latest book is '.  “This book is a celebration, an affirmation, a history text, a little bit of memoir, and an exuberant prayer for the prosperity of Black women.” ―Ashley M. Jones, author of Magic City Gospel Fièvre was born in and was educated there, going on to earn a  from  and a  in Creative Writing from . She self-published her first mystery novel Le Feu de la vengeance at the age of 16. At age 19, she signed her first book contract for a Young Adult novel. Fièvre was editor for the 2012 anthology Ainsi parla la terre / Tè a pale / So Spoke the Earth. She is secretary for Women Writers of Haitian Descent, an organization based in Florida. She has published stories in English and French in several American literary journals. She has worked as a translator and interpreter and taught at a  in . Most recently, she has been a professor at . Fièvre is editor for the literary journal Sliver of Stone. She is the head of Florida publishing company Lominy Books.

artandfaithunplugged.com (https://www.artandfaithunplugged.com/) When it seems like too many things are falling apart and too many people are being too terrible, it's easy to become too hopeless, too discouraged, and too angry. Instead of complaining and raging about the church's failures, the government's failures, and everyone else's failures, we can focus more on things like art and faith that help us navigate the joys and pains of everyday life. Art matters because it helps us belong to ourselves, others, God, and the world. Art and Faith Unplugged and its host Charlotte Donlon make space for conversations and writing that explore how art deepens our belongings and the ways art intersects with faith, doubt, and mystery. Welcome. We hope Art and Faith Unplugged helps you notice the ways art and faith help you flourish and belong. Visit artandfaithunplugged.com (https://www.artandfaithunplugged.com/) for the show notes for this episode, essays, articles, and news about art, faith, and belonging. Kaveh Akbar and Ashley M. Jones joined Charlotte for a conversation about Kaveh's newest book of poems, _Pilgrim Bell _which is available now wherever books are sold. Kaveh and Ashley discuss a few of Kaveh's poems from Pilgrim Bell, explore how poems help us feel connected to our loved ones who have died, share what it's like to write about their parents, and more. The three also discussed how writing and reading help us belong to ourselves, others, the world, and the divine. Learn more about Kaveh, his work, and his writing at http://kavehakbar.com/ Learn more about Ashley, her work, and her writing at https://ashleymjonespoetry.com/ _More about Art and Faith Unplugged's host: Charlotte Donlon is a writer, a certified spiritual director for writers at Writing Life Spiritual Direction (https://www.writinglifespiritualdirection.com/), and host of Art and Faith Unplugged (https://www.artandfaithunplugged.com/). Charlotte's writing and work are rooted in noticing how art helps us belong to ourselves, others, God, and the world. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Curator, The Christian Century, Christianity Today, Catapult, The Millions, Mockingbird, and elsewhere. Her first book is The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other (https://charlottedonlon.com/the-great-belonging-book). You can subscribe to her newsletter (https://charlottedonlon.substack.com/) and connect with her on Twitter (https://twitter.com/charlottedonlon) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/charlottedonlon/).

artandfaithunplugged.com (https://www.artandfaithunplugged.com/) When it seems like too many things are falling apart and too many people are being too terrible, it's easy to become too hopeless, too discouraged, and too angry. Instead of complaining and raging about the church's failures, the government's failures, and everyone else's failures, we can focus more on things like art and faith that help us navigate the joys and pains of everyday life. Art matters because it helps us belong to ourselves, others, God, and the world. Art and Faith Unplugged and its host Charlotte Donlon make space for conversations and writing that explore how art deepens our belongings and the ways art intersects with faith, doubt, and mystery. Welcome. We hope Art and Faith Unplugged helps you notice the ways art and faith help you flourish and belong. Visit artandfaithunplugged.com (https://www.artandfaithunplugged.com/) for the show notes for this episode, essays, articles, and news about art, faith, and belonging. Kaveh Akbar and Ashley M. Jones joined Charlotte for a conversation about Kaveh's newest book of poems, _Pilgrim Bell _which is available now wherever books are sold. Kaveh and Ashley discuss a few of Kaveh's poems from Pilgrim Bell, explore how poems help us feel connected to our loved ones who have died, share what it's like to write about their parents, and more. The three also discussed how writing and reading help us belong to ourselves, others, the world, and the divine. Learn more about Kaveh, his work, and his writing at http://kavehakbar.com/ Learn more about Ashley, her work, and her writing at https://ashleymjonespoetry.com/ _More about Art and Faith Unplugged's host: Charlotte Donlon is a writer, a certified spiritual director for writers at Writing Life Spiritual Direction (https://www.writinglifespiritualdirection.com/), and host of Art and Faith Unplugged (https://www.artandfaithunplugged.com/). Charlotte's writing and work are rooted in noticing how art helps us belong to ourselves, others, God, and the world. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Curator, The Christian Century, Christianity Today, Catapult, The Millions, Mockingbird, and elsewhere. Her first book is The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other (https://charlottedonlon.com/the-great-belonging-book). You can subscribe to her newsletter (https://charlottedonlon.substack.com/) and connect with her on Twitter (https://twitter.com/charlottedonlon) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/charlottedonlon/).

This week, Ashley M. Jones and JoAnn Balingit talk about where poetry lives in the face of loss and grief, and how that intimate place can be shared. Balingit's intimate approach to poetry has had to consider a wider audience during her tenure as poet laureate of Delaware. For example, when Balingit received a request from the Philippine embassy to write a poem, she said yes—but not without pause. The poem was to mark the 75th anniversary of Philippine-American relations. As Balingit put it, “This was a fraught request about a troubled relationship.” Her response was to write a Tanaga—a Filipino poetic form—alongside three other poets who also wrote Tanagas for the embassy marking the occasion. All four poems are in the July/August 2021 issue of Poetry. Today you'll hear “Tanaga: Song Where Every Filipinx Person Is Standing by the Ocean.”

This week, Ashley M. Jones speaks with one of the most important mentors in her life: poet and scholar Dr. Donna Aza Weir-Soley. They speak about protest and power, Weir-Soley's mentor Audre Lorde, and the legacies they inhabit and continue as Black poets writing toward liberation. Weir-Soley met Audre Lorde as a student at Hunter College, and came to run the Audre Lorde Women's Poetry Center. Today, they invite Lorde into the room with the poem, “Power.” You'll also hear “8 Minutes and 46 seconds,” by Weir-Soley, which appears in the July/August issue of Poetry magazine.

Ashley M. Jones is interested in the way that poetry can bring loved ones back to life. In this week's episode, Jones sits down with Cathy Linh Che to talk about resurrections on the page. After fleeing Vietnam as refugees, Che's parents worked as extras on the film Apocalypse Now. Jones and Che talk about the revisionist cinematic history of the film, and the uncanny family story which serves as the backdrop for a series of poems and a memoir.  You'll hear “Zombie Apocalypse Now: The Making Of” and “Zombie Apocalypse Now: Documentary,” two poems from the June 2021 issue of Poetry.

One thing Ashley M. Jones knows to be absolutely true is that her work is made possible by the poetry and spirit of Lucille Clifton. This week, Jones speaks with Sidney Clifton, one of Lucille Clifton's daughters. Sidney Clifton is the President of the Clifton House, a new endeavour to transform her childhood home in Baltimore into a gathering place for writers and artists. They speak about mothers, their impenetrable connection to family, and how important it is to honor our journeys, no matter how winding they might be. Jones says, “It was unreal for me to get to spend time with Sidney, and what a joy to also get to invite Ms. Clifton's poems into the room to join the conversation. What a celebration, indeed.”

Ashley M. Jones says she has never met an Ashley she hasn’t liked. This week, the feeling was mutual. Jones caught up with Ashlee Haze, a force of a poet in every sense of the word. Haze’s poem, “temple,” is featured in this month’s issue of Poetry, along with a video of the poem, which you can check out on our website. Jones and Haze talk about the South, its memory, and the ways in which the world of poetry has opened to new ways of writing, working, and experiencing the form. In this episode, they rebuke the Ivory Tower.

Poetry can be a great connector. It can connect us to our bodies and our histories. For Ashley M. Jones, poetry is also a way to connect with faith. In today’s episode, Jones sits down with the poet Faisal Mohyuddin, whose poem “Allah Castles” appears in the May issue of Poetry, the first under Jones’s guest editorship. Mohyuddin and Jones explore faith, the things that move them into action, and their shared pride as high school writing teachers. Jones says she doesn’t believe in coincidences, only an otherworldly alignment. Today’s conversation is a testament to that.   Ashley M. Jones reads from her book dark//thing and Faisal Mohyuddin reads from the May issue of Poetry and from his book The Displaced Children of Displaced Children.

In the second part of her conversation, Birmingham-based poet Ashley M. Jones talks about why she does the literary work that she does, why she’s flourishing as a Black woman in the south, and why she ate dirt that one time.

In observation of National Poetry Month, Jerald chats with award winning, Birmingham-based poet, educator, and organizer, Ashley M. Jones about artistic inspiration, expression, and examining the United States through a literary lens.

Charlotte Donlon talks to poet Ashley M. Jones about her writing life, her faith, and more. Ashley M. Jones holds an MFA in Poetry from Florida International University, and she is the author of Magic City Gospel (Hub City Press 2017), dark / / thing (Pleiades Press 2019), and_ REPARATIONS NOW! (Hub City Press 2021). 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. She was a finalist for the Ruth Lily Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship in 2020. 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. She currently serves as the O’Neal Library’s Lift Every Voice Scholar and as a guest editor for Poetry Magazine. Find Ashley on Twitter at @ashberry813 Follow Ashley on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PoetAshleyMJones/ Ashley's Website https://ashleymjonespoetry.com/ A Few of Ashley's Upcoming Events and Readings Why It Matters (Tuesday, February 16, 2021) https://www.facebook.com/events/465717017784130 LIFT EVERY VOICE: THE POET IN YOU (Tuesday, February, 23, 2021) https://www.facebook.com/514691570/posts/10157671255806571/?d=n University of Missouri Visiting Writers Series (Thursday, February 25, 2021) More information coming soon. Links to Ashley's Books REPARATIONS NOW! (Available for Pre-order) https://www.hubcity.org/books/poetry/reparations-now dark / / thing https://ashleymjonespoetry.com/dark-thing/ Magic City Gospel https://ashleymjonespoetry.com/magic-city-gospel/ A Few of Ashley's Poems She Read During This Episode God Made My Whole Body https://therumpus.net/2020/03/rumpus-original-poetry-three-poems-by-ashley-m-jones/ My Grandfather Returns as Oil From Ashley's book dark//thing (https://ashleymjonespoetry.com/dark-thing/) Links to Some of Ashley's Essays: Amanda Gorman Reminded America What Poetry Can Do https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/22/opinions/amanda-gorman-affirmed-poetry-and-me-ashley-m-jones/index.html When God Calls My Name https://scalawagmagazine.org/2021/01/when-god-calls-my-name/ Magic City Poetry Festival https://www.magiccitypoetryfestival.org/ More about Charlotte Donlon, Host of Art and Faith Unplugged: Charlotte Donlon is a writer and a certified spiritual director. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Seattle Pacific University where she studied creative nonfiction. Charlotte’s work has appeared in The Washington Post, Catapult, The Millions, The Curator The Christian Century, Mockingbird, _and elsewhere. Her first book, _The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other, was published Broadleaf Books in November 2020. More about Charlotte and her work can be found at charlottedonlon.com. You can sign up for her email newsletter powered by Substack at charlottedonlon.substack.com. And you can connect with Charlotte on Twitter and Instagram at @charlottedonlon.

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.

Ashley M. Jones is an educator in the creative writing department of the Alabama School of Fine Arts. She received an MFA in Poetry from Florida International University. She’s an award-winning author who has published a few collections of poetry, including Magic City Gospel and dark // thing. Listen to the latest episode of The Glory in Our Stories as she speaks on teaching during the pandemic, experiencing personal lost because of the virus in the last five months, and maintaining motivation as a creative! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/calvin-w-pennywell-jr/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/calvin-w-pennywell-jr/support

In this episode of Gravy, Ashley M. Jones and Lee Bains III share verses about food labor. Jones is an award-winning poet from Birmingham, Alabama. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Florida International University, and she is the author of Magic City Gospel (Hub City Press 2017),  dark / / thing (Pleiades Press 2019), and Reparations Now! (Hub City Press 2021). Her work has earned several awards, including the Silver Medal in the Independent Publishers Book Awards and the Lucille Clifton Legacy Award. She is founding director of the Magic City Poetry Festival. She shared the poems in this episode at the 2019 Winter Symposium in Birmingham. Bains, also a native of Birmingham, is a singer/songwriter who founded the Glory Fires. His first interest in music came from the church he attended as a child. He went on to study literature at college in New York, but returned to Alabama and refocused his writing attention on music. Lee Bains III and the Glory Fires have released 4 albums, including 2019’s Live at the Nick.  The songs shared in this episode were performed at the 2019 Southern Foodways Symposium in Oxford, Mississippi.

Recorded by Ashley M. Jones for Poem-a-Day, a series produced by the Academy of American Poets. Published on August 17, 2020. www.poets.org

Shereen and Gene head to Alabama to talk about race in the American South. Mayor Randall Woodfin of Birmingham talks about growing up in the shadow of his city's history. The poet Ashley M. Jones shares how she learned to love her hometown. And Gigi Douban of WBHM takes on some tough listener questions about race in the Magic City.