Photo by Erin Nelson.
Ashley M. Jones — founding director for the Magic City Poetry Festival and now Poet Laureate of Alabama — at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens on Feb. 19, 2021.
Birmingham poet Ashley M. Jones — the founder of the Magic City Poetry Festival — has been named the next Poet Laureate for Alabama.
Jones will be the first Black poet to serve as Poet Laureate and will also be the youngest person to hold the position, according to a news release at the festival website.
The Poet Laureate of Alabama is a four-year term during which the selected poet serves as an ambassador of poetry for the state. The position was created in 1930.
Jones was chosen for the role on Aug. 22 during the annual conference of the Alabama Writers Cooperative.
“When I was a little girl growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, I made a plan for my life as a poet, and part of that plan — a big, big dream — was to serve as Alabama State Poet Laureate,” Jones said in a statement. “I’m so honored to serve my home state as an ambassador, advocate, and as a lover of poetry and all the people who write it, read it, and find new magic from it in this life.”
Her duties as poet laurate will include appearances at Alabama schools, universities, libraries and other institutions, as well lectures, poetry readings and workshops both locally and nationally.
To read a recent profile of Jones in Iron City Ink, click here.
