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April 4-6, 2025

Word of South

Ashley Jones

Ashley Jones is the Poet Laureate of Alabama (2022-2026). She is the first person of color and the youngest person to hold this position in Alabama’s history. 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 is the Associate Director of the University Honors Program at UAB and a PhD student in English at Old Dominion University. She’ll be appearing with the poet Jacqueline Trimble at this year’s Word of South.