Books by Ashley M Jones
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.
Copies
No copies available.
Magic City Gospel
Magic City Gospel is a love song to Birmingham, the Magic City of the South. In traditional forms and free verse poems, 2015 Rona Jaffe Writer’s Award-winner Ashley M. Jones takes readers on an historical, geographical, cultural, and personal journey through her life and the life of her home state. From De Soto’s “discovery” of Alabama to George Wallace’s infamous stance in the schoolhouse door, to the murders of black men like Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner in modern America, Jones weaves personal history with the troubled, triumphant, and complicated history of Birmingham, and of Alabama at large. In this assured debut, you’ll find why “gold is laced in Alabama’s teeth.” In the ghosts and the grits, this collection speaks to Jones' generation and beyond: “Let me wash you in Alabama heat / and tell you who you are.” Magic City Gospel is a book of personal, political, and cultural history, whose red dirt stained pages offer a fresh and unvarnished gaze on Birmingham, Alabama, and America.
Copies
No copies available.
Mid/South Sonnets
by C.T. Salazar, Casie Dodd, Brandon Amico, JC Andrews, Susan April, Stacey Balkun, Makalani Bandele, Anna Lena Phillips Bell, Andrea Blancas Beltran, Ellie Black, Darrell Bourque, Wendy Taylor Carlisle, Justin Carter, Michelle Castleberry, George David Clark, Adam Clay, Christian J Collier, Dorsey Craft, Brody Parrish Craig, Hannah Dow, George Drew, CD Eskilson, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Beth Gordon, Maggie Graber, David Greenspan, Andrew Hemmert, Raye Hendrix, Maggie Rue Hess, Faylita Hicks, Erin Hoover, Randall Horton, SG Huerta, T.R. Hummer, Jules Jacob, Bethany Jarmul, Grant Matthew Jenkins, Edison Jennings, Ashley M Jones, Carol Parris Krauss, T.K. Lee, Steven Leyva, Aurielle Marie, Landon McGee, Benjamin Morris, Caleb Nolen, Mónica Teresa Ortiz, Alison Pelegrin, Samuel Prestridge, Suzanne Underwood Rhodes, C. T. Salazar, Celeste Schueler, Gerry Sloan, Cody Smith, Tom Snarsky, Nathan Spoon, Colin James Sturdevant, Hiba Tahir, Nikki Ummel, Damien Uriah, Clara Bush Vadala, John Vanderslice, Cassandra Whitaker, Jim Whiteside, Marcus Wicker, Matthew Wimberley, Marianne Worthington, Jianqing Zheng
Mid/South Sonnets brings together sixty-six poets with ties throughout the American South. From Oklahoma to Florida-with larger clusters of work from the more centrally located Mid-Southern states, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee-the states represented through these writers offer a wide range of landscapes and perspectives that speak to the region's eclectic nature. While this anthology includes many conventional and experimental approaches to the sonnet form, each poem ultimately enacts an attempt to struggle through the anxieties of home in the hope of finding a place to love and belong.
Featuring:
Rasha Abdulhadi
Brandon Amico
JC Andrews
Susan April
Stacey Balkun
makalani bandele
Anna Lena Phillips Bell
Andrea Blancas Beltran
Ellie Black
Darrell Bourque
Wendy Taylor Carlisle
Justin Carter
Michelle Castleberry
George David Clark
Adam Clay
Christian J. Collier
Dorsey Craft
Brody Parrish Craig
Hannah Dow
George Drew
CD Eskilson
Ann Fisher-Wirth
Beth Gordon
Maggie Graber
David Greenspan
Andrew Hemmert
Raye Hendrix
Maggie Rue Hess
Faylita Hicks
Erin Hoover
Randall Horton
SG Huerta
T. R. Hummer
Jules Jacob
Bethany Jarmul
Grant Matthew Jenkins
Edison Jennings
Ashley M. Jones
Carol Parris Krauss
T. K. Lee
Steven Leyva
Aurielle Marie
Landon McGee
Benjamin Morris
Caleb Nolen
mónica teresa ortiz
Alison Pelegrin
Samuel Prestridge
Suzanne Underwood Rhodes
Celeste Schueler
Gerry Sloan
Cody Smith
Tom Snarsky
Nathan Spoon
colin james sturdevant
Hiba Tahir
Nikki Ummel
Damien Uriah
Clara Bush Vadala
John Vanderslice
Cassandra Whitaker
Jim Whiteside
Marcus Wicker
Matthew Wimberley
Marianne Worthington
Jianqing Zheng
Copies
-
$19.95
dark // thing: poems
dark // thing is a multifaceted work that explores the darkness/otherness by which the world sees Black people. Ashley M. Jones stares directly into the face of the racism that allows people to be seen as dark things, as objects that can be killed/enslaved/oppressed/devalued. This work, full as it is of slashes of all kinds, ultimately separates darkness from thingness, affirming and celebrating humanity.
Copies
No copies available.
Lullaby for the Grieving
With previous work hailed by the New York Times as “unflinching” and “piercing”, Ashley M. Jones’s Lullaby for the Grieving is her most personal collection to date.
In her fourth poetry collection, Jones studies the multifaceted nature of grief: the personal grief of losing her father, and the political grief tied to Black Southern identity. How does one find a path through the deep sorrow of losing a parent? What wonders of Blackness have to be suppressed to make way for "progress"?
Journeying through landscapes of Alabama, the Middle Passage and Underground Railroad, interior spaces of loss and love, and her father’s garden, Jones constructs both an elegy for her father and a celebration of the sacred exuberance and audacity of life. Featuring poems from her tenure as Alabama’s first Black and youngest Poet Laureate, Lullaby for the Grieving finds calm in unimaginable storms and attempts to listen for the sounds of healing.
Copies
-
$16.95