Pure Magic
Ashley M. Jones’ first book of poetry, “Magic City Gospel,” was released in January, but it already has received national attention. In a piece for The New Yorker, Edwidge Danticat compared the Birmingham native to Gwendolyn Brooks and Langston Hughes, two of the most influential poets of the 20th century. It is clear that for Jones, who has received a Rona Jaffe Writer’s Foundation Award and a B-Metro Fusion Award at only 26 years old, this is just the beginning.
“Magic City Gospel” is part memoir, history lesson and social commentary. It amounts to an examination of civil rights in Birmingham entwined with Jones’ own vivid coming-of-age memories.
Jones grew up with her family in a creative household. In particular, the music Jones listened to with her parents made an impact on the poet as a child. “Gospel” buzzes with allusions to Sam Cooke, Tina Turner, Prince and Sammy Davis, Jr.
“Hearing these voices all the time as a little kid, getting to learn what rhythm could be and how to dance and all that kind of stuff just really made life fun and magical,” Jones said. “I keep saying ‘magical,’ but so much of my life has been pure magic. I don’t know how else to describe it.”
Asked if “Gospel” is protest poetry like Danticat described, Jones answers without hesitation.
“Yes,” she said. “I write as a form of activism, in addition to writing because I like it, and to converse with the world.”
The poet is no stranger to lending her voice to enact change, which makes it even easier to see the comparison drawn to Brooks and Hughes.
“I think that using poetry as activism is something that people don’t always think about,” Jones said. “When you say ‘activism,’ you think of people protesting, of people chaining themselves up to something or whatever. That’s not necessarily who I am as a person.”
Jones began writing “Gospel” while a graduate student at Florida International University and homesick for the city she grew up in.
“I started to appreciate home in a way that I never had before,” Jones said. “Around that time when I was coming back, things were starting to pop up in Birmingham.”
She wanted to contribute to the “renaissance” happening in her hometown and began teaching creative writing at the Alabama School of Fine Arts, her high school alma mater.
“There’s something special about a high school creative writing student,” Jones said. “They’re really just discovering writing for the first time, and they’re right at the beginning of their career. To see that awakening happen is so inspiring as a teacher and as a writer because it reminds me of how exciting it is to write.”
For Jones, shaping the next generation of writers is a collaborative learning process involving both teacher and students.
“Really, I’m just a guide,” Jones said. “Yes, I’m bringing you some knowledge, but you’re also bringing me knowledge, and that kind of makes it a little easier, I hope, for them to do what they want to do and make their voices powerful.”
“Gospel” is a testament to the power Jones found in her own voice after years of writing, studying and finding confidence in her identity.
“Everything that I wrote, I was tying it back to the home that I missed so much and the identity that I had grown to love so much as I was coming into myself as a black woman. And the poems came,” she said. “The rest is history, I guess.”
Find out more about Jones and “Magic City Gospel” at ashleymichellejones.wordpress.com.
Courtesy artsBHAM