the pen is mightier
Also her state’s youngest poet laureate, Ashley Michelle Jones has been making sense of the world through poetry since she was 7 years old.
Ashley Michelle Jones is a poet, instructor of creative writing at the Alabama School of Fine Arts and Converse University Low Residency MFA, and the first Black Poet Laureate of Alabama (2022-2026). She is the youngest person to hold this position. Her works deal with race and history inspired by Alabama's historical enslavement of Black men and women in the Deep South. She is the author of Magic City Gospel, dark//thing, and Reparations Now! Born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, Jones founded the Magic City Poetry Festival. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Florida International University.