Ashley M. Jones
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send you a password reset link.
Southern Blend
John Rittmann
Did you know that we have a poet laureate in Alabama? Well, we do, and she’s absolutely incredible.
Ashley M. Jones has been the state’s honored poet since August 2021, and she’s the first person of color to be given the title. She serves on the staff at the Alabama School of Fine Arts teaching creative writing.
Born in 1990, she’s also our youngest one ever. I know that may be off-putting for some, but there’s plenty of reason as to why she has earned this title for the 2022-2026 term.
She was born in Birmingham in 1990, and she’s called Birmingham her home her entire life except for a stint of residing in Miami during graduate school. Otherwise, she’s a lifelong Alabamian.
She uses her mastery of the written word to express her experience of being a person of color, being a woman and being a southerner all at once. Her words are evocative of that southern feeling that I chase – mysticism and realism bound together to exist and teach.
I have such a deep respect for her, because we share similar points of view. I think I’ve shared similar points of view in my columns, but maybe not as concisely as she does in this quote from an interview with NPR:
“A part of that mindset of self-hatred, I think, might be something that a lot of Southerners or maybe Americans in general have,” she says of the racist history in the region. “And I think if we transition to a mindset of self-love on the state level, the city level and even our personal selves, we’ll get a lot closer to the liberation that we all actually need.”
There’s not much more to say. I’m awed and overshadowed by her. I do want to share more of her work with all of you, which you’ll find below:
GOD MADE MY WHOLE BODY
and the way it moves, and the way it shakes and jiggles and plops, and
God made my smile and the thousand tears that fall from my eyes,
God made the sun and the moon and the leaf held loosely in my
godson’s perfect little hand, and God made the summer breeze and
the guitar Ron Isley crooned over, and God made the grass and the
bugs and the dogs and the trees, and God made all of our bodies to
make waste, and God made even the waste that lives in us, and God
made the way the world spins and the way it will shake us right off if
we don’t act right, and God made the rivers which make it possible
for us to drink, and God made the clouds which hold the rain, and
God made the birds which fly and the wolves that howl. God made
the folds of my brain and the thoughts that burrow there. God made
my belly, my uterus and all the little eggs which might become
children—God made the doubt that rests there, like bubbling gas.
God made the silence I wrap around myself some nights, alone. God
made the music we sing and the music we hate. God made the ears
which help us stay balanced, help us to hear what people say behind
our backs and in front of them. God made sweet potato pie and
aunties and mamas who know how to add just enough nutmeg. God
made my whole body. And God made my grandma and her gold
tooth, and God made my grandma and her curly wig, and God made
my grandma I didn’t know, and God made my grandpa who was a
ghost, and my grandpa who was a terror. God made fear and the way
it slices us up thin and flimsy, God made the way a hand quivers
before it strikes. God made pain. God made the blood which runs and
keeps us running. God made an everlasting red.
